Suspect in bus stop attack now facing more charges

The arrest last spring for a sexual assault at a bus stop has led to more charges against a Calgary man, one of them reminiscent of the original accusation.

City police investigators recently laid a sexual assault charge against Chase Daniel Collier, 24, for a crime committed May 23, 2015, when a woman walking from a transit stop was attacked, his lawyer said Monday.

Collier was already charged with aggravated sexual assault after a 19-year-old woman was violently attacked while waiting for a bus at Sandstone Dr. and Berkshire Blvd. March 22, 2016.

A bus driver arriving at the transit loop during that incident scared off the woman’s assailant in what’s thought to have been a random attack.

The woman suffered head injuries when she was thrown to the pavement and punched.

That incident led detectives to revisit a recent cold case with similarities to the Sandstone assault.

Collier is also charged with harassment for phone calls he allegedly made to women in September and November of 2015 and March, 2016 all involving different victims.

And he’s charged with failing to comply with an order stemming from accusations he didn’t tell authorities where he was staying in February, 2015.

Despite the recently-added charges, Collier — who appeared in court Monday — remains free on bail.

But prosecutors are trying to have Collier tried for both sex assaults at the same time, something his lawyer Ben Leung is fighting on the grounds it would prevent the fair adjudication of his client’s case.

“We want to make sure if he chooses to testify in his defence in one matter, he can choose to remain silent in another matter,” he said.

Collier is to appear in court again on Nov. 4 where joining or separating the two sexual assaults in trial will be argued.