Woman ‘shaken’ as professor acquitted
He faces trial in a similar case later this month
• An Ontario Court judge has acquitted a University of Toronto professor of sexually assaulting a young woman in her home more than three years ago — a verdict that has left the complainant “shaken but not shocked.”
The case of James Andrew Payne, a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, hinged on two competing accounts of what occurred one December night in 2011, when Mr. Payne and the then 21-year-old woman ran into each other on a west-end Toronto street. Her name is shielded by a publication ban.
She testified in a Toronto courtroom that he followed her into her house without permission, removed some of her clothing, jumped on top of her and grabbed at her as she pleaded with him to stop; he told the court she invited him up and was receptive to his advances. He testified that when she said she was too drunk to proceed, he felt relieved because he had a girlfriend, and he left.
In her ruling Tuesday Justice Geraldine Sparrow said she thought Mr. Payne’s evidence had a “rehearsed ring to it,” but she also called the woman’s testimony “somewhat troublesome” in three areas.
First, that she told police she was drunk that night, but then denied being drunk in court; second, she failed to tell investigators that she knew she had not closed the door to her house properly behind her — an omission she called “not insignificant”; and third, she submitted to police an account of the night’s events, as written by a friend, without reviewing it properly and later said it contained information that was not true.
“I do not disbelieve the complainant,” Judge Sparrow told the court. “As stated, she was clear and consistent in most of her testimony … but his unshaken testimony, viewed in the light of certain flaws in her evidence outlined above, leaves me in a state of reasonable doubt on the issue of whether or not there was consent of sexual contact.”
Mr. Payne, who is in his 50s and has stepped away from his teaching duties, declined to comment. He faces another allegation of sexual assault, brought forward by a woman after this case was publicized in the media.
“This was the result we had expected all along,” said Steven Stauffer, Mr. Payne’s lawyer. “We didn’t know it would take this long to get there, but we were confident this is where we would end up.”
He said they expect the same result from the second trial, which is due to begin at the end of April.
Reached for comment, the complainant wrote in an email: “I’m shaken but not shocked. I’ve survived a sexual assault and four difficult years battling the case in court. I feel like I can do anything now. It’s clear to me that we work with a legal system and not a justice system. I’m happy it’s now over, it’s time for me to move on and heal the wounds this process has left me.”