Boss found guilty of sexual assault

When Glen Carson grabbed the bum of a woman working at his Bridgewater restaurant while she was drying the silver, “she was shocked and yelled out,” says a judge who sentenced him to four months of house arrest for the sexual assault.

“He asked her, ‘What are you going to do, call the Labour Board?' She replied, ‘It is not the Labour Board you need to worry about, it's my husband,'” Bridgewater provincial court Judge Ronda van der Hoek said in a written decision released Thursday.

After a four-day trial, the judge found Carson, 58, guilty of sexual assault.

His pre-sentence report “sets out a rather positive summary of continuous employment, family support and general resilience,” van der Hoek said in her decision dated Jan. 5.

“Mr. Carson comes before the court with a criminal record arising from the sentence imposed earlier today by His Honour Judge (Paul) Scovil, who also convicted Mr. Carson of a somewhat similar offence involving the same restaurant and a different female employee.”

‘SEES HIMSELF AS VICTIM’

Carson “sees himself as the victim of false allegations and spent quite a bit of time and energy attempting to convince the (pre-sentence report) writer of his innocence as well as his efforts to discredit the victim,” said the judge. “He is adamant in his denial of any wrongdoing.”

The victim in this case testified she and her husband had to file for bankruptcy after she quit her job at his restaurant.

“She is in therapy and nervous in public fearing she may see Mr. Carson; she suffers extreme anxiety, has nightmares and suffers depression; and she does not feel like she is the same person she was before the offence,” van der Hoek said.

“Hearing her testify at trial, I expect that she will heal from this situation and this confident, well-spoken, woman will go on with her life not blaming herself in any manner for this offence perpetrated against her.”

‘FAIRLY GRAVE’

It's a serious offence to sexually assault an employee in a workplace, said the judge.

“That the sexually assaultive behaviour occurred while she was actually working coupled with the minimizing comments made to her afterwards, renders it fairly grave,” van der Hoek said.

“Employees are in a position of weakness as it relates to an employer and the actions of Mr. Carson took advantage of his position of authority. We do not live in a television comedy world such as ‘Alice' where slapping a waitress on the buttocks was seen as a joke rather than the demeaning sexual assault that it is.”

The judge concluded that Carson's actions “were designed to humiliate a person he perceived as a helpless female employee. The victim proved she was underestimated when she chose to report the offence.”

Van der Hoek imposed her four-month conditional sentence on Carson, to be served consecutively to the one Scovil handed him earlier that day.

“There will also be a sixmonth period of probation that will be served concurrent to the order of probation” Scovil imposed on Carson, she said.