Crown counsel spent most of Wednesday cross examining a convicted criminal who claims he is responsible for the home invasion, sex assault and robbery on Jan. 27, 2016 of two young women who were university students.
The trial is for accused David Robert Hope, who is charged with one count of break and enter to commit an indictable offence, two counts of unlawful confinement or imprisonment, two counts of sexual assault and two counts of robbery.
A man named Jean Nadeau, however, has claimed it was him who approached the apartment in the 1500-block of Church Ave. at about 7:20 p.m. on Jan. 27 of 2016. Nadeau is currently serving a sentence for sex assault at the Matsqui Institution. Nadeau knows Hope, having met Hope when Nadeau was in custody at the Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Facility (on Wilkinson Road) between May of 2016 and September of 2017.
Nadeau has short hair, almost bald, while Hope’s head is shaved bald.
On Wednesday prosecutor Patrick Weir questioned Nadeau. Nadeau offered many similar details to the sequence of events but was also unable to recollect many details, saying he was high on GHB and cocaine at the time.
On Tuesday Nadeau testified he was living on the streets at the time of the home invasion but on Wednesday he said he’s never lived on the streets.
“I was confused and upset [when I said that],” he said.
Nadeau said he approached a partly open window of the ground-floor apartment that the two university students were staying in and, knew he was “pinched” when they spotted him from the inside.
“That’s when I told them to get down,” Nadeau said.
Nadeau said he entered through a push door and told the two women to get down.
“They [knelt], I looked around the apartment for jewelry and money. I didn’t grab anything. I assaulted them instead.”
When asked to describe the layout of the apartment Nadeau was unable to.
“I was on a lot of GHB, it makes your memory blurry and foggy, I can’t recall [some things],” he said.
He did recall a glass change jar of money, which he pocketed.
Nadeau said he told them to take their clothes off and ushered them into a bedroom. One was on her menstrual cycle and didn’t want to disrobe but he told her to anyways. With both in just their panties, he sexually assaulted one.
At that point Nadeau suddenly stopped the sex assault, he said.
“I was creeped out. It’s not in my past, not in my history to do this,” he said.
The women offered him more money. He recalled he turned the light on in the room as he stayed in the room while the women dressed.
He picked up an Apple iPhone on the way out the door while he escorted them to a restaurant on Shelbourne. He didn’t recall what restaurant it was, and was wary enough not to let them enter, but he did recall waiting outside a bank on Shelbourne Street while the two women used an ATM. The first one didn’t work, so they crossed the street to another.
One of the women gave him $160 and he took off back to get his backpack, which he had left behind earlier. He also then tossed away the iPhone because he was “too high” to set it back to a manufacturer’s setting (which he believed would reset it to a new state, making it harder for police to trace).
Nadeau said he then hid for 45 minutes in a bush near Shelbourne, knowing the police would have been called, but did not hear any sirens or see any lights.
The court case for Hope will continue Thursday.
reporter@saanichnews.com
