Passing remark led to arrest in masked break-in and sexual assault, trial told

Eight weeks into an investigation into a break-in in which a masked intruder sexually assaulted a woman in her home, police were ready to make the file inactive.

But when Const. Kevin Cumming went to tell the complainant that the search for a suspect had stalled, he received a piece of crucial information that led to the arrest of the boyfriend of the victim’s sister, court heard Monday.

Cumming testified the woman told him her sister had said her boyfriend was out of their home early May 4, 2016.

“I asked her if she had come up with anything else,” Cumming told provincial court Judge Sean Dunnigan, of the June 29, 2016, conversation.

The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, said she had spoken to her sister about three weeks earlier.

“Her sister had mentioned to her … her boyfriend was actually up around 5 a.m. on the date of the incident,” Cumming said.

“(The boyfriend) told her he was up and going for energy drinks.”

The boyfriend, who can’t be named to protect the complainant’s identity, faces charges of break and enter to commit a sexual assault, sexual assault and wearing a disguise. Cumming said the break-in investigation was unusual because the crime was clearly done for a purpose other than theft, the main motive for offenders unlawfully entering homes.

He said the woman informed him her common-law husband had just left for work when she heard their front door open.

An intruder, wearing a tuque over his head with eye holes cut out, immediately came to her bedroom door and pinned her on the bed.

When he heard the woman’s child crying, he suddenly left.

Cumming said he arrested the sister’s boyfriend the day the woman divulged the new information.

He told Crown prosecutor Kyra Kondro he suspected the accused was involved because the perpetrator was familiar with the home and he believed the man was intentionally trying to hide his identity.

In his statement to Cumming — the admissibility of which is being challenged by defence lawyer Andre Ouellette — the accused admitted going to the victim’s home, breaking in and attacking her.

He said he left when he heard the woman’s daughter wake up.

“What were you gonna do?” Cumming asked.

“Just have sex with her,” the suspect said.

Dunnigan will hear evidence from the woman and her boyfriend before Kondro and Ouellette make submissions Tuesday on the admissibility of the statement.