Girl tells court she was fondled at day home

The kids knew him as Papa Ken.

And according to at least one of them, he repeatedly sexually assaulted them, court heard Monday.

In a videotaped interview played in the sexual assault trial of Calgarian Kenneth Alfred Jenkinson, a then-nine-year-old girl told a police investigator she was regularly fondled by the accused.

With the girl, now 11, sitting in a remote room and watching her interview via video link, Crown prosecutor played the May 20, 2016, interview for Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Michele Hollins.

The girl said the last time she was touched by Jenkinson, now 71, was in the summer of 2015.

“He wanted to show me what he was working on downstairs,” she said of the babysitters, who along with the accused’s wife, minded the child at an unlicenced, private day home.

She said she wanted to leave, but Jenkinson asked her for a hug. He then hugged her twice, the girl said in the interview.

“He gave me a hug and then another hug,” she said. “He wanted me to sit on his lap. After he gave me two hugs I sat on his knee ... and when I sat on his knee he put his hand down my shirt.”

She told the detective the accused was rubbing her breasts “and I didn’t like it.”

“I was too scared to say stop,” she said. “It happened a lot. I don’t know how much times. Like every day I went there,” she said.

Under cross-examination by defence lawyer James Wyman, the girl acknowledged she and the other two complainants became good friends while at the day home.

And she agreed she had a discussion with one of the girls about being touched by Papa Ken.

But she denied a suggestion by Wyman that she and the other girls discussed their allegation while waiting to speak to police.

Jenkinson faces two charges each of sexual assault and sexual interference involving three girls who attended the day home.