Former fire chief denies sexual assault allegations during testimony

Aformer chief of the Fort St. James volunteer fire department denied allegations he sexually assaulted three of the department’s female volunteers when he took the stand in his defence on Wednesday. “The allegations are untrue,” Robert Harold Bennett told the court when asked by defence lawyer Jason Ternow what he had to say about the claims at the centre of a trial at the Prince George courthouse.

Bennett admitted a problem with alcohol towards the latter end of his tenure affected his performance as the department’s chief. He also said he could be loud and obnoxious when drunk.

“But I’ve never in my life ever have I sexually assaulted anybody in my entire life. I’ve never touched anybody for a sexual purpose,” Bennett said with a forceful tone in his voice.

In an address to the jury to open the defence’s case for Bennett, Ternow submitted the allegations against Bennett raised by Kirsten Rudolph, Lisa Button and Joy Reierson were “cruelly concocted and an absolute fabrication.”

It’s alleged Bennett groped the three on various occasions and came close to raping Reierson while alone with her one evening in the hall’s radio room. Under questioning from Ternow, Bennett said he had been going through a stressful time due to pressures on the job combined with the suicide of a sister and the premature birth of he and his wife’s twin children.

“I wasn’t very good at managing stress... I went and saw some counselling to assist me with it. I also used alcohol as a crutch,” Bennett said.

Bennett admitted he was “intoxicated” during the evenings of two key events – the alleged attack on Reierson on April 4, 2013 and an alleged groping of Rudolph on July 18, 2013 but denied the complainants’ version of the events.

He said Reierson had asked to talk to him about the challenges she was facing as the secretary-treasurer of the department’s charitable wing. He said they went into the main hall’s radio room for the sake of privacy – so others could not overhear her concerns – and while she leaned against a table near a window, he leaned against the front edge of a desk near the door, four to five feet away.

Bennett confirmed a volunteer firefighter, Mark Rivard, showed up at one point to ask if he wanted a ride home. Bennett said he wanted to stay awhile longer out of a reluctance to get a lecture from his wife for being so drunk and Reierson subsequently volunteered to drive Bennett home.

— see BENNETT, page 2

I’ve never touched anybody for a sexual purpose.