A jury is soon to be contemplating the fate of a Peachland man accused of sexually assaulting two women while they slept.
Shea Gardecki is facing two charges of sexual assault and one charge of break and enter with intent to commit an indictable offence for allegedly entering a home on Highland Drive North on Aug. 23, 2016 and sexually touching two women who were sleeping inside.
Crown counsel Patricia O’Neil said that the evidence clearly points to Gardecki as the man who perpetrated the crime, despite a lack of forensic evidence such as bodily fluid or fingerprints being left at the scene.
“Not every crime scene is capable of offering that kind of evidence,” she said.
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The house where the touching is alleged to have happened was a busy place where lots of young people spent time. When police went to the scene they noted that people were walking in and out of the house, picking things up and behaving as was to be expected given the act that they believe happened.
What’s more important, she said, is that Gardecki matched the description of the perpetrator and had the opportunity to do the act.
O’Neil also drew attention to an interview Gardecki had with police.
While an RCMP officer asked him repeatedly about the crime, he denied knowledge of it.
He said he was drunk and didn’t remember anything of the night.
“In my normal state of mind I would never do anything like that. … Girls can say anything they want,” Gardecki told a Mountie.
He then said that girls have a tendency to lie about events of that kind.
“Girls, they’re like that you know, they freak out about anything … If they don’t like somebody they may do that too. They may say something more intense than what is happening,” O’Neil told the court.
“Consider those statements. In the context of the repeated assertions that he didn’t do it, he doesn’t know what happened. That’s a very odd thing to say. Why would he suggest that the girls are hysterical and exaggerating if they don’t like somebody.”
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