Ex- police officer denies abusing girl in the ’ 90s
Stephen Laurence Huggett on Wednesday denied allegations that he ever sexually abused the young daughter of a female acquaintance back in the 1990s when the girl was about 10 or 11 years old.
The retired Calgary police officer told his lawyer Alain Hepner he did not shower with the girl, did not give her alcohol, was not naked when he did gymnastics on his bed with her, did not walk around his southeast home while naked in her presence, and did not French kiss her at any time.
Huggett, 61, said he had a close friendship with the girl and would essentially babysit her on occasion.
Huggett, who came to Canada from England in 1981, worked for the Calgary Police Service for just over 25 years before he retired in 2006. He pleaded not guilty to sexual assault and sexual interference at the start of trial on Tuesday.
The girl testified Huggett would shower with her and wash her entire body.
“That did not happen — ever,” Huggett told Hepner.
Huggett said he recalls washing the girl’s hair while standing outside the shower, but he had his clothes on and did not touch any of her private parts: “I never washed her entire body.”
He said he never served the girl wine, although he said she pestered him one night for a drink, so he went to the kitchen, snipped off the top of a reddish blue Popsicle and gave her some.
Huggett acknowledged he did do gymnastics on the bed with the girl, but both of them were wearing sweatsuits.
“I’d watch her and instruct her and make sure she didn’t hurt herself,” he said.
He said he would, on occasion, walk around in his house naked, but “not in other than my own personal space.”
Huggett also said the girl’s mother never spoke to him about not showering with her daughter or not giving her any alcohol.
The complainant, now in her late 20s, said Huggett sexually touched her on a number of occasions during sleepovers at his southeast home when she was in elementary school, around 1996 to 1998.
The woman told Crown prosecutor Jenny Rees that Huggett showered and played gymnastics with her and also gave her wine to drink one night before groping her.
She said her mother knew Huggett for a few years, when she was in Grades 4 to 7. “I remember having sleepovers at his home ... my memories of the sleepovers are not happy,” she recalled. “I stopped going after the last incident with the wine.”
The woman recalled Huggett once told her when she was in Grade 6 or 7, “You’re so pretty, I wish I was younger so I could date you.” She also said Huggett would draw pictures and write things like “I love you” on her back and she had to guess what he was drawing. She noted he would also do “crazy kissing,” in which they would put their tongues in each other’s mouths.
The complainant’s mother testified she had observed Huggett showering with her daughter and asked him not to do that, but said he didn’t see it as a problem. She said she also told him she had concerns about him being around her without clothes on.
She called police in 2001 after she found her daughter’s diary pages.
The trial before Court of Queen’s Bench Justice James Langston continues.