Woman says she awoke to sailors performing sex acts on her
HALIFAX — A young woman has told the sexual assault trial of a U.K. sailor that she woke up face down and naked on a bed in the barracks of a Halifax-area military base with at least three men performing sex acts on her.
The complainant said she went to sleep in a room with four beds in the Warrior Block of 12 Wing Shearwater next to a sailor and when she awoke, two men were performing sex acts on her from the front and one from behind.
“I could see outlines or shadows of people,” she told the Nova Scotia Supreme Court on Thursday of the April 2015 incident. “I heard voices laughing.”
Darren Smalley, 38, is charged with sexual assault causing bodily harm and participating in a sexual assault involving one or more people in a case that once involved four accused.
The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, said she went in and out of consciousness three times, and recognized Smalley’s voice during the incident.
“I didn’t know what the hell was going on … I was in shock,” she said, speaking in a soft tone.
She said at one point, someone squeezed her nipple and it hurt, but she didn’t want to scream for fear they would do something else to her.
Eventually, her friend appeared in the doorway and ran to her side. She remembered it was just her and her friend in the room at that point, and her friend was collecting her clothes.
“I needed to get out,” she said, adding that a man came to the door and she told him she needed the hallway cleared of people.
Her friend drove home, and the next morning, she went to see her family doctor. After the appointment, she went home and started researching her options.
She decided to go to the hospital, but still wasn’t sure she was going to report the incident. Shen then decided she would to make sure it did not happen to any other woman.
At the hospital, she was examined by a sexual-assault nurse, a process that took about five hours.
“It was a horrific experience,” she said.
The woman said a military police officer had come to the hospital. She was exhausted, but agreed to be interviewed after her exam.
She was shown photos in the courtroom on Thursday, including photos of bruises on her shoulder, back and knee. She told the court it took weeks for the bruises to fade.
She testified that the ordeal eventually caused her to have a “meltdown,” and it generally had a negative impact on her education and her life.
“It felt like the bottom had fell out of my world,” the woman said.
Earlier Thursday, the woman said she reluctantly stayed the night in the barracks because her friend was becoming intimate with another member of the team and she did not want to leave her there.
She decided to go to sleep in Simon Radford’s bed because she had met him earlier and had been speaking with him throughout the night.
She testified she gave him a goodnight kiss, as if you say “thank you” for letting her sleep in his single bed, one of four in the room.
When asked if she had consented to sexual activity with Smalley or anyone else, she said: “There was none... I would not have consented.”
The men were in the area in April 2015 to participate in a naval hockey tournament at the time of the alleged sexual assault.
The trial continues.