Assault convictions upheld

Warning: some graphic details

The B.C. Court of Appeal has upheld the conviction of a man who bit off a piece of his girlfriend’s private parts while performing oral sex on her.

In December 2012, Brian Douglas Louie was convicted of the aggravated sexual assault and assault causing bodily harm of his girlfriend, who can only be identified by the initials L.T. due to a publication ban.

Court heard that after a night of partying, involving the consumption of alcohol and cocaine, L.T. asked Louie to give her oral sex. But while doing so, he bit off a piece of her labia and clitoris.

She screamed for help but Louie threw her down, beat her and dragged her down a flight of stairs before fleeing the scene. Other people in the home came to L.T.’s aid and called police. Louie was arrested later.

He testified at trial that the bite had been an accident and that he had only meant to give her a “playful pinch” but that she had “freaked out” and hit him on the head and that only then did he hit her back in self-defence.

But the judge preferred her evidence to his testimony and found Louie guilty of the offences, sentencing him to four years in prison.

On appeal, he argued that the fact that his lawyer had previously represented a Crown witness created a conflict and that the judge had wrongly declined to grant a mistrial. In a ruling released Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the Appeal Court said that the trial judge had applied the proper legal test in assessing the mistrial application and found that there had been no miscarriage of justice.