New trial ordered for man convicted of sex offences with two of his daughters

A new trial has been ordered for a B.C. man who launched an appeal after he was convicted of sex offences against two of his daughters.

In February 2014, a B.C. Supreme Court jury found Garnet William guilty of one count of incest, two counts of sexual assault and three counts of sexual interference.

The offences against William’s daughters, who can only be identified by the initials T.C. and G.C. due to a publication ban, occurred between December 1999 and December 2010.

T.C. testified about a general pattern of sexual touching while G.C.’s evidence, largely from a video statement, described sexual assaults by William, including forced sexual intercourse with her.

William raised a number of grounds on appeal, including that the trial judge had failed to properly instruct the jury.

Before closing arguments in the case, the Crown applied to have the evidence of the victims be treated as “similar-fact evidence.” That would have allowed the jury to make some use of evidence William sexually abused one daughter in determining whether he also sexually abused the other daughter.

In declining the application, the judge noted there was a lack of detailed evidence of similarities and the possibility that the complainants had had the opportunity to influence the other’s evidence.

A three-judge panel of the B.C. Court of Appeal has found that the decision by the judge to reject the proposition that the evidence of one complainant could be used to bolster allegations against the other meant that he should have taken special care in his jury instructions.

“Such an instruction was particularly important in this case,” Justice Harvey Groberman said in his reasons for judgment. “The jury had before it an accused who was charged with sexual abuse of two of his daughters. There was a real danger that it would infer that the multiplicity of allegations enhanced the credibility of each complainant.”