Quebec judge criticizes officers for intimidating victim

A Quebec Court Judge has harshly criticized three police officers for having intimidated a sexual assault victim in a courtroom as she was testifying against a fellow cop charged with groping her during a Halloween party.

“The behaviour of the agents of the peace had the effect of intimidating the plaintiff. Such reprehensible behaviour has no place in a courtroom and it has to be denounced,” Judge Pierre Bélisle wrote in a lengthy decision to sentence Montreal police officer André Hébert-Ledoux on Monday to a 10-month sentence that he will serve in the community.

Earlier this year, Hébert-Ledoux was convicted of having sexually assaulted a woman he knew during a Halloween party in 2017 attended by about 70 people in Rosemont. The woman is not a police officer and a standard publication ban has been imposed to protect her identity.

Hébert-Ledoux testified he was very drunk during the party and did not recall what happened. The woman said he appeared to take advantage of a moment when she was somewhat isolated to grab her breasts and buttocks. She testified that when she objected, Hébert-Ledoux forced his hand under her underwear and inserted fingers inside her vagina.

Bélisle’s sentence went beyond what the Crown sought for Hébert-Ledoux. But the judge also highlighted what three other police officers did, on June 17, 2019, during a break in the trial and while Bélisle was absent from the courtroom at the Montreal courthouse.

The woman was in the witness box when the three police officers got up and formed what Montreal police Constable Felicia Adam later claimed was “a screen” between the witness and Hébert-Ledoux.

The victim told Bélisle she felt intimidated and collapsed to the courtroom floor in tears. Adam told the judge she acted “by instinct” to contribute to form the screen even though she did not know the two other police officers — Sgt. Stevens Hamelin of the Montreal police and Julien Côté, of the Longueuil police.

“(Adam’s) version doesn’t hold the road,” Bélisle wrote. “A group of three people do not spontaneously advance to form a wall between the plaintiff and the accused. The plaintiff was still in the witness box. She had the right to a spirit of tranquility to continue her testimony freely and without constraint.”

The judge decided the behaviour of the police officers could not be a factor in Hébert-Ledoux’s sentence because there was no evidence to indicate he was involved in the plan to form the screen.