Article content
A woman testifying for a third day at the trial of an alleged sexual predator angrily pushed back against his lawyer during cross-examination at the Kingston courthouse Thursday.
Advertisement 2
Article content
“Put yourself in my position,” the witness said when questioned about incidents dating back to 2007. “Would you remember all the details? Many years have gone by. I thought I had moved on with my life. This is a lot to take in.”
Article content
Recommended Videos
Article content
The woman was testifying remotely in the Ontario Superior Court trial of Michael Haaima, who is facing 98 charges for incidents dating back to 2007 through to his arrest in 2022. Among the charges against the 40-year-old tech worker are more than 30 counts of sexual assault, including several involving weapons or choking.
The Crown is expected to call 28 women to testify at the trial, which started last week. Madame Justice Robyn Ryan Bell is presiding over the trial without jury.
During her two previous days of testimony this week, the witness, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, described for the court how she and two other women had been living out of her car in March 2007 before moving into Haaima’s house on Selkirk Street as his roommates.
Article content
Advertisement 3
Article content
One of the witness’ friends had testified on Monday that Haaima had been her weed dealer and had consensual sex with him previously, which turned violent, involving hitting and choking and left her bruised.
In testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday, the witness told the court she had been attracted to Haaima but also alleged that he had sexually assaulted her in three incidents.
On Thursday, Haaima’s lawyer, Natasha Calvinho, walked the witness through what the counsel described as “inconsistencies” between her statements given to the police when she was originally contacted by police in 2022. The statements were shared on the screen with the witness and the defence counsel went through items by page and line.
Calvinho drilled down on the witness’ descriptions of Haaima’s body position when he allegedly penetrated her with his fingers when she fell asleep on his bed soon after the women moved into his house.
Advertisement 4
Article content
The lawyer also questioned the witness at length about the layout of the west-end bar where she had testified that a drunken Haaima exposed himself and forced her face-first to his groin in April 2007.
Calvinho also pushed her on the witness on her testimony this week that Haaima was drunk on this occasion and her telling police investigators that he had been in rehab and recovery when the women had moved into his house.
The witness acknowledged some of the variances between her accounts during police questioning in 2022 and her testimony this week, but she maintained hers was a truthful account.
“I apologize,” she said about any misstatements. “This is my first time going through something like this.”
Calvinho then suggested to the witness that she hadn’t provided a physical description of a bystander, a friend of Haaima, because of the man could dispute her version of events that night. She had testified she had driven Haaima and the man back to the Selkirk Street house and they had sexually assaulted her in an upstairs bathroom while others were unaware in the living room.
Advertisement 5
Article content
The witness told the court her recollection of Haaima’s associate was limited because she had seen him only a couple of occasions in 2007.
At one point, when assistant Justice Megan Williams objected to these lines of questioning, Calvinho acknowledged her cross-examination was “contentious,” but necessary in putting forward a defence of her client. Justice Ryan Bell allowed the defense counsel some latitude to proceed.
For the witness, her breaking point was reached when Calvinho suggested she had been “jealous (when) this sexy man was passing himself around” her roommates and she had “wanted him for yourself.”
“No, I was disgusted, not jealous,” she said. “Where are you getting this stuff?”
Across the three days of testimony, the witness fought back tears, but never asked the judge for a moment to compose herself. She was standing alone in an office of a western Ontario courthouse near her home. On the monitor in the courthouse, the witness could only see Madame Justice Ryan Bell. Neither Haaima nor his lawyer were on screen.
gjoyce@postmedia.com
Article content
