A 23-year-old woman told a Barrie courtroom on Monday that she was awakened by a man who pretended to be someone else to have sex with her as a Wasaga Beach house party was winding down over the Victoria Day long weekend in 2019.
Reese Shephard, now 24, is charged with one count of sexual assault. He was 18 at the time of the alleged incident. The alleged victim was 17.
Just past midnight on May 19, the woman testified, she entered a vacant bedroom of the Wasaga bungalow with another man, who was only identified as “Noah”. The woman told the court that she had a brief, consensual sexual encounter with Noah, who later left the party when his ride arrived.
Soon after, and with her now alone and fast asleep, someone entered the room. With her senses dulled, she recalled the man telling her that he was staying over – a ruse to make it look like he was Noah – then a clumsy sexual encounter followed in the darkened bedroom, the court heard.
“It was pitch black,” the woman testified, to explain why she didn’t realize at first that the man having sex with her was not the man she originally thought.
“It could have been five minutes, it could have been 20, it was confusing,” she testified from a Barrie courtroom on Dec. 16.
It was only when she began to become more alert and felt pain, she testified that she insisted the lights be turned on. In addition, another man, who is expected to testify later in the trial, briefly entered the room and asked if he could join the couple in bed, which added to her confusion and insistence that the lights be turned on.
“It was that Reese kid,” she told Crown attorney Dennis Chronopoulos of her discovery when the lights were eventually turned on, “I could tell from his clothes.”
The woman, who cannot be identified in accordance with a publication ban that protects the identity of sexual assault complainants, testified by video link from another area of the Barrie Courthouse.
The party was hosted by a friend of the complainant who lived on the same street. That party host invited guests from her new, local-based friend group, along with a collection of people she knew when she had lived in the Orangeville-Shelburne area. As a result, two largely separate groups of people who rarely mingled with one another were in attendance.
The alleged victim was from Wasaga Beach at the time, the accused was from Orangeville and, according to the complainant’s testimony on Monday, the two had no interaction until the bedroom encounter. But she was aware of who he was and recalled meeting him once previously, she testified.
The woman told the court that once she managed to have the lights turned on, she ran out and told her friend, the party host, what had happened. She then went to the room of that woman’s mother, where she remembers finding the accused asleep in a chair.
She soon made her way out of the house and to her own home where she lived with her parents a short distance away.
“I said, ‘Mom, I got raped.’”
The complainant testified that her mom immediately called 911.
Court heard tape of that 911 call, which was time-stamped just past 5 a.m. The complainant’s mother could be heard imploring her husband, the girl’s father, to not go down the street to confront the accused. The call lasted for a few more minutes where fragmentary information about the man’s identity was revealed as “Reese.”
Police attended the scene and the complainant was taken to Orillia hospital for an examination. She made a statement to the OPP the next day, which was recorded and played in court on Monday.
Her testimony when questioned by Chronopoulos earlier on Monday largely mirrored what she told the OPP.
It was during cross-examination that the atmosphere in court got testy. Shephard’s lawyer, Richard Allman, repeatedly asked the complainant about her “blank spot,” a period of time that she says she was asleep and after Noah had left.
Allman also asked the complainant to explain how it was possible for an encounter that, she testified took place without her knowing the true identity of her partner, could happen by having sex in three different positions as her evidence detailed on the stand to Chronopoulos and in her statement to the OPP.
“I was being moved around a lot,” she testified.
Allman’s inferred that the alleged victim’s “blank spot” was really her blacking out, which clouded her memory of what took place that night.
“You were intoxicated by alcohol,” Allman asked
“I was terrified,” the complainant shot back.
Allman is expected to complete his cross-examination of the woman on Tuesday morning in Courtroom 1. The trial, taking place before Superior Court Madam Justice Christie is expected to last all week.
