Charges stayed in sexual assault case
It’s been nearly six years since Jorden Van Voorthuizen was arrested in Greece and accused of sexually assaulting two young boys in the late 1990s.
The former Taber man was brought back to Alberta in April 2012 where he stood trial in 2014, was found guilty, and sentenced to nine years in a federal prison.
Van Voorthuizen was granted an appeal and a new trial was ordered, but Tuesday in Court of Queen’s Bench, on only the second day of his new trial, Justice D.K. Miller ruled the accused had not been tried in a reasonable amount of time, and he stayed the charges.
“Timely justice is one of the hallmarks of a free and just society,” Miller said.
Composed but obviously relieved, Van Voorthuizen shook hands with his lawyer, Greg White, and even the Crown prosecutor before walking out of the courtroom a truly free man for the first time since his arrest, despite periods where he was out on bail.
“We’re happy this is over,” White said afterward outside the courthouse.
White said Miller simply interpreted the law in relation to a recent decision by the Supreme Court of Canada — R v Jordan — and determined that too much time had expired between Van Voorthuizen’s arrest and the new trial.
In the Jordan case, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the framework traditionally used to determine whether an accused has been tried within a reasonable time under a section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court replaced the old framework with a ceiling of 18 months between the time the charges are laid and the trial in a provincial court without preliminary inquiry, or 30 months in higher courts.
After doing some math in the Van Voorthuizen case, in which Miller added some months but subtracted others, he concluded there were about 44 months of delays under the Jordan ruling, and that they were not only unreasonable, but unconstitutional.
The first day of Van Voorthuizen’s retrial Monday was spent arguing the higher courts’ ruling. White argued delays in getting his client to trial were unreasonable, while the Crown said the Jordan rule doesn’t apply to all the delays, including several caused by defence.
Crown prosecutor Brad Stephenson said he will review the reasons for the judge’s decision before he determines if further steps are appropriate.
The complainants in the case, who are now adults, testified during trial in September 2013 that the accused touched them sexually, and engaged in other sexual activities with them on numerous occasions. One of the victims denied accusations by defence that they were molested by an older brother, and not Van Voorthuizen. The men cannot be identified under a court-ordered publication ban.
Van Voorthuizen testified the assaults never occurred, although he admitted one of the boys tried to initiate sexual contact with him on two occasions. He rejected both advances, he told court.