Yukon Mountie claims it was a threesome, not rape

[Barrister]

Is Mr Belak a Vulcan?

His brother is pro-hockey player Wade Belak.

[Barrister]

Encounter 'not a proud moment': officer

The intercourse he had with a woman after a party in Watson Lake last March was consensual, RCMP Const. Graham Belak told a Whitehorse courtroom Thursday.

Belak, a 30-year-old former AHL hockey player, is one of two RCMP officers standing trial this week for sexually assaulting a woman at Belak's home early on Mar. 8, 2009.

He took the stand in his defence, following former senior colleague Const. Shawn McLaughlin, 33, who was also charged in the incident that occurred when both officers were off-duty.

Since being charged last March following the allegations, both have been suspended with pay from active duty.

The woman said she was drugged and raped at Belak's home.

The officers maintain the sex was consensual, they did not drug the woman, and that their alleged victim had made a series of sexual overtures to them beginning at the party where they met before going to Belak's.

The officers did not know the woman, nor she the officers prior to the party, Justice Leigh Gower of the Yukon Supreme Court heard.

Once the three reached Belak's residence, casual conversation turned to the subject of marital fidelity and the woman's husband, according to both officers.

McLaughlin, who is also married, and Belak, who is a bachelor, testifed that the woman said her husband treated her poorly.

It was at that point Belak suggested that a way of getting back at her husband was to cheat on him, the court heard.

Crown prosecutor Robert Beck seized on that remark during his cross-examination of Belak.

"I would suggest the reason you brought up cheating was that you were trying to steer her into having sex with you and Shawn McLaughlin," said Beck. "In the hopes she would pick you as the possible candidate to cheat with."

Belak said that was a possiblity, but like McLaughlin before him, he denied the woman ever lost consciousness or that either of the officers forced themselves on her.

When asked directly, Belak and McLaughlin said the alleged victim is lying.

Beck asked Belak if he would think the story of a married woman agreeing to have three-way sex with two men she had just met at a party would be bizarre. Belak disagreed.

"I would say it was rare to hear a story like that, not bizarre," Belak replied. "I think it happens more than people talk about."

The constable appeared to regret his actions, but at the time said he didn't think there was an issue of an off-duty officer sleeping with a married woman.

"It's not a proud moment in my life, that's for sure," said Belak.

"Morally, I would say I probably shouldn't have (taken part) ... because the two parties were married."

When Beck asked him if he considered his actions "immoral," Belak responded that he did not.

http://whitehorsestar.com/archive/story/encounter-not-a-proud-moment-officer/

[Barrister]

Judge to deliver his verdict on Tuesday

Constables Graham Belak, 30, and Shawn McLaughlin, 33, were charged in March of last year following complaints by a woman that she was raped at Belak's house following a party in the border community.

"The accused were determined to have sex with (the woman)," Beck told the court this morning.

"And what better way to do that than pray on a victim that had little chance of being believed."

Having arrived with her husband in Watson Lake just a week before the party and alleged rape, the woman had few friends or acquaintances.

She attended the party to get to know her new co-workers, she testified, and met the off-duty police officers there.

Belak and McLaughlin were friends, but neither knew the woman prior to the party, nor she the two officers.

While each had consumed alcohol on the evening in question, the two officers have testified they were not heavily intoxicated and neither was the woman.

However, testimony from other party guests heard during the trial describe the woman's sobriety somewhere between mild intoxication, all the way to "sloppy drunk."

The defence maintains their clients engaged in consensual sex with the woman and flatly rejected that the officers drugged her, as she testified to earlier in the trial.

"Surely you cannot accept that these two officers, or either one, drugged her and proceeded to have sex with her while she was completely unconscious for two hours," said Robert Warren, McLaughlin's lawyer, said in his closing submissions this morning.

"It just doesn't make any sense."

The toxicology report before the court shows no trace of a date rape drug.

Warren also questioned the alleged victim's credibility on the witness stand, suggesting her spotty recollection of the evening's events raised "red flags."

"'I don't remember' and 'I blacked out' are convenient ways not to have to face the truth," said Warren.

Andrew McKay, Belak's lawyer, portrayed to the woman's behaviour during the evening – at the party and when she moved to Belak's with him and McLaughlin – as an invitation to sex.

"She made passes at the officers at the party and was sexually aggressive towards them," said McKay. "These were words and actions of a consenting individual."

McKay pointed to the woman's conflicting stories to the doctor conducting the rape examination and that she failed to inform her husband or authorities of the alleged assault until 24 hours after the fact.

It is the defence's position that the officers' accuser did not want to her husband to know she had consented to sex with two other men and therefore concocted the rape story.

"She's in a bind ... she thinks she might be outed," McKay told the court. "So she comes up with this story that these officers drugged and raped her."

But the Crown prosecutor argued it is understandable that a woman in the alleged victim's condition would behave in the manner she did, considering the circumstances.

"She didn't tell her husband that she had consensual sex because she didn't have consensual sex," Beck argued. "If we assume she was sexually assaulted by two police officers ... she's not thinking straight, does not have her critical thinking skills.

"One person might go straight to their spouse and tell them they were assaulted, another might do what (the alleged victim) did," Beck continued. "She was emotionally shut down."

Following the Crown's and defence's submissions, which continued through to press time early this afternoon, Yukon Supreme Court Justice Leigh Gower must weigh the evidence and make a decision, expected Tuesday.

http://whitehorsestar.com/archive/story/judge-to-deliver-his-verdict-on-tuesday/

[viper37]

Uhm, no. If someone is too stoned/drunk/unconscious to be able to say no, it's still rape.

she said she was near unconscious or unconscious.
The officers says she wasn't.

I'm assuming, for the sake of the argument, that she was conscious.  But being drunk and stone, a woman is usually more willing to have sex, or try something different (threesome being an example).  It's not rape, it's having less inhibitions, totally different.

Of course, if her version of events are true (spiked drinks) that would be rape.  I'm not a moron, in case you forgot.

[Syt]

Is Mr Belak a Vulcan?

His brother is pro-hockey player Wade Belak.

Do they also have a Franco-Canadian archeologist in the family?