‘I really feel dangerous he needed to reside like that however that is the place the assault occurred’
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Whereas telling courtroom she enormously feared him, a girl who claims she was sexually assaulted by Richard Mantha additionally expressed sympathy for him.
The witness, who can’t be recognized, mentioned Monday she felt badly for Mantha’s squalid dwelling situations in a fifth wheel trailer parked in a quonset hut on a property east of Calgary the place she has testified she was sexually assaulted and crushed on April 22, 2022.
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“I really feel dangerous he needed to reside like that however that’s the place the assault occurred,” the lady informed Calgary Court docket of Justice, who was emotionally overcome when viewing proof images of the scene.
“I don’t know if I really feel offended or really feel sorry for him. I’m sorry — I didn’t suppose trying on the images would upset me a lot.”
The 59-year-old Mantha is charged with sexually assaulting seven ladies and drugging six of them on the agricultural property in Rocky View County.
He’s additionally charged with failing to seem in courtroom.
The girl additionally engaged in typically testy exchanges with defence lawyer Andre Ouellette, who questioned her reminiscence of occasions and her recollection of the alleged crime scene.
“You don’t acknowledge the property in any respect, that (police) had been exhibiting you in images,” mentioned Ouellette.
The witness mentioned from the images taken by police a 12 months after she was allegedly assaulted, Mantha’s dwelling quarters had modified however that she acknowledged some options, akin to the place she started charging her cellphone simply previous to being attacked.
Her recollections of the complete property weren’t excellent “as a result of most of my reminiscence was from working from there — I didn’t know (then) I’d have to recollect.”
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The girl additionally admitted greater than 20 years of drug use that included methamphetamines and crack cocaine might have impacted her reminiscence.
However she added that she’s been sober for the previous 18 months and that she vividly recalled the violent assault that day during which she informed courtroom final week concerned Mantha knocking down her pants and severely beating her along with her cellphone and trying to strangle her when she resisted.
Ouellette additionally questioned if the lady had mentioned the case when she met one other alleged feminine sufferer of Mantha’s throughout substance abuse therapy.
“I informed her I’m (concerned within the Mantha case) however I gained’t focus on it along with her,” she mentioned.
The witness mentioned she additionally informed the lady she’s “planning on forgiving (Mantha) as a result of I acknowledge they’re sick individuals who have to get effectively.”
She’s testified she went with Mantha after the person promised her building work and a strategy to go away a lifetime of prostitution.
And she or he pointedly requested Ouellette if he’d ever been assaulted.
“I’m the one asking the questions,” replied Ouellette.
The witness additionally testified that shortly after the assault, she noticed Mantha in a automobile with a girl driving previous her whereas she stood at a bus cease in Forest Garden.
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“I panicked. Any individual met me and so they took me house,” she mentioned.
She’d heard rumours, she informed courtroom, that “he was providing cost for folks to hurt me and I used to be afraid.”
Ouellette once more challenged her reminiscence, noting she couldn’t recall if the automobile pushed by Mantha at the moment was pink or blue.
Final April, police extensively searched the property 20 km east of Calgary on which Mantha was renting an outbuilding, and the place authorities say they employed cadaver canines and eliminated “1000’s” of reveals.
Final week, Justice Judith Shrier rejected a defence request that Mantha be tried in seven separate trials, agreeing with Crown prosecutors that that may contain a number of appearances of witnesses and probably incompatible verdicts.
The trial, which resumes Tuesday, is anticipated to run one other three weeks.
BKaufmann@postmedia.com
X: @BillKaufmannjrn
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