Victim attends attacker’s appeal
An Edmonton lawyer who successfully fought to have a publication ban removed from his identity so he could speak out about being a victim of a childhood sexual assault attended his attacker’s appeal hearing Wednesday.
“Regardless of the decision, you have to speak out, you have to say things, because things happen in the darkness and the silence,” said Pierre Asselin, speaking outside the courthouse after hearing arguments in Bitupu Mufuta’s appeal of his conviction.
In 2017, Mufuta was convicted of sexual interference and uttering a death threat for offences that took place when he tutored Asselin, then a junior high school student, in the early 1990s.
Mufuta was sentenced to threeand-a-half years by Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Jolaine Antonio, who also ordered he be placed on a sex offender registry for 20 years, submit a DNA sample to the national registry, and be subject to a five-year weapons prohibition.
Asselin successfully fought to have the publication ban on his identity removed following Mufutu’s conviction. Bans on identifying sexual assault victims are issued automatically, but Asselin wanted to be able to tell his story.
“You just have to fight the bullies,” said Asselin, who was supported in court by members of his family during the hearing.
Mufutu was also joined by supporters in court and remains released on bail pending the appeal court’s decision.
His lawyer Peter Royal argued there are several grounds of appeal, including there wasn’t evidence that his client was the man who tutored Asselin. Royal asked the panel of three appellate judges to overturn the verdict, and either order a new trial or an acquittal.
But Crown prosecutor Keith Joyce argued that the trial judge had already considered the issues Royal raised, and that just because Antonio “could” have made different findings about the evidence, it doesn’t mean she “should” have come to a different verdict.
The court reserved its decision in the case.