Man pleads guilty to sex assault on child

For 10 years, a man charged with sexually assaulting an eight-yearold girl in Saskatoon was nowhere to be found.

Terry William McCullough had been interviewed in connection with the case in July 2005, but when police decided to lay charges the next month, he was gone.

He wasn’t located until March 2015, after a Saskatchewan-wide arrest warrant was changed to a Canada-wide warrant in 2014. He was charged with sexual assault and sexual interference and a trial was scheduled for November 2016.

McCullough didn’t show up for court. New trial dates were set, but defence lawyer Michael Nolin made a charter application for the charges to be stayed because of an “extensive delay” in proceeding to trial. He argued the delay should be calculated from the day the information for a charge was laid — not the day his client was arrested.

“It would be illogical to allocate the time period where the police cannot locate an accused against the Crown,” Queen’s Bench Justice Allisen Rothery wrote in her decision dismissing the application.

Nolin also argued that the length of time between the laying of the information in 2005 and McCullough’s arrest in 2015 deprived him of the right to a fair trial. He is unable to make “full answer and defence” because his memory has since faded, Nolin said.

He argued police could have done more to find McCullough over the 10-year period, including expanding the warrant sooner and following up with his mother in Alberta.

Court heard the investigating

officer exhausted all attempts to locate McCullough — including speaking to his mother and probation services — before requesting an arrest warrant just days after realizing McCullogh had left Saskatoon. McCullough testified at the application hearing that he left between July and August 2005 without giving anyone a forwarding address.

Nolin argued McCullough wasn’t evading police because he hadn’t yet been formally charged. Rothery pointed out that he knew he was under investigation, had been successfully avoiding Calgary police since 2000 for an unrelated offence, and used four different aliases.

He was also breaching a probation order when he left Saskatoon in 2005, her decision noted.

“It would bring the administration of justice into disrepute if an accused could use his breach of probation to make his location difficult for the police to trace him, then allege a Charter breach because they did not find him in a timely manner,” Rothery wrote.

After hearing the decision, McCullough pleaded guilty to sexual assault and sexual interference. The latter charge specifies that he used his mouth and hands to touch an eight-year-old girl for a sexual purpose between December 2004 and June 2005. Court heard he had been renting a room in her family’s home. Police received the complaint in late June 2005. The victim, now an adult, was in court on Tuesday for the guilty pleas. She hugged her family members when the delay application was dismissed. Sentencing arguments are scheduled for May 29.

It would be illogical to allocate the time period where the police cannot locate an accused against the Crown.