SCOC won’t hear appeal of man convicted of torturing roommate
OTTAWA An Alberta man who tortured and starved his roommate is not getting a chance to appeal his conviction before Canada’s top court.
The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed Dustin Paxton’s request to challenge a 2016 ruling from the Alberta Court of Appeal which upheld a guilty verdict of aggravated assault and sexual assault.
The Supreme Court, as usual, did not list reasons for its decision.
Paxton was convicted in 2012 for the prolonged and brutal abuse of a man who was his friend and roommate. He was designated a dangerous offender and is serving an indeterminate jail sentence.
The victim was dropped off, near death, at a Regina hospital in April 2010. He was emaciated, battered and bleeding.
In its November 2016 ruling, the Alberta Appeal Court upheld the convictions and said there was no evidence to suggest that the victim was consenting to sexual contact with Paxton.
The Appeal Court also rejected other arguments from Paxton’s lawyers, who said the trial judge made errors, showed bias and shouldn’t have excluded a defence expert who found the victim’s testimony unreliable. They also questioned the victim’s memory about events that had happened years before.
“It is hard to imagine a situation more compelling than the one found to exist by the trial judge, of regular beatings inflicting serious bodily harm on (the victim), to support his evidence that he feared being beaten by Paxton if he did not comply with his sexual expectations,” wrote the judges.
“Paxton created an atmosphere where (the victim) was required to provide total obedience through physical and psychological control of this vulnerable person.”
During Paxton’s trial in Calgary, court heard that he humiliated, starved, beat and sexually assaulted his roommate over 18 months while they lived together in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The man, who cannot be identified, testified that he suffered a traumatic brain injury from the abuse and can no longer hold a job.