MANDEL: Weeping complainant tells court Hoggard raped, choked her
Article content
Eight years have passed and she is still struggling to breathe.
After hanging out at a bonfire party following Hedley’s concert in Kirkland Lake, Ont., the young woman said lead singer Jacob Hoggard invited her to his room at the Comfort Inn to play some music and talk. And she believed him.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
MANDEL: Weeping complainant tells court Hoggard raped, choked her Back to video
tap here to see other videos from our team.
When he pulled out his guitar, she remembers being excited: “I was getting one-on-one time with the singer of a band,” she testified.
But then he put it down and told her she was too “talky talky.” Before she understood what was happening, she said he was taking off her tank top, bra and skirt, leaving her standing just in her “underwears.
“I felt so uncomfortable, I felt so violated,” said the woman, her identity protected by a publication ban. “I told him to stop.”
She testified Hoggard, 40, proceeded to rape her, slap her, call her names, choke and urinate on her. He has pleaded not guilty to sexual assault, admitting only they had a sexual encounter on June 26, 2016, which he insists was consensual.
In her emotional testimony in the Haileybury, Ont., courtroom, the woman paused often to catch her breath and frequently broke down in tears as she described the alleged assault that began after he pulled out his phone, took her photo and repeatedly asked her age.
She said she put her hand in front of the camera and asked why he was doing this. He then tried to kiss her, she said. “I wouldn’t let him. I tell him I’m really not interested.”
She said she got up and tried to leave, but he blocked her way. “All I remember is he turned me around, he bent me over the bed, he pulled his pants down,” she testified, her breathing growing more laboured. “He didn’t successfully rape me anally, but he raped me vaginally.”
She then began to cry. “I didn’t consent to that,” she wept.
She told him to stop and tried to push him off, she said, but Hoggard was too strong. She testified that later she would look in the mirror and see a red hand print on her behind and bruises on her thighs from where she said Hoggard “repeatedly” slapped her.
He also called her degrading names, she said. “He called me a dirty little piggy, he called me a dirty pig repeatedly. He imitated pig sounds.”
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
tap here to see other videos from our team.
She told the jury the musician then flipped her on to her back, put his hand under her jaw and began to choke her.
“How are you feeling?” asked Crown attorney Peter Keen.
“Terrified,” she replied.
Unable to breathe, she said she wasn’t sure if she blacked out, but recalls Hoggard looming over her.
“I remember seeing his bright eyes that still haunt me to this day,” she cried. “I was scared. I just get a lot of flashbacks about them.”
When it was over, she said he climbed off her and she ran to the bathroom to throw up. “I just felt so dirty,” she testified as the tears fell. “I remember feeling very sore, very sick.”
Asked if she needed a break, she told the prosecutor she wanted to continue. “I want to get this done.”
While in the shower, she said Hoggard came into the bathroom and asked if he could urinate on her. “I was so disgusted, I told him no. He comes into the shower and he pees on me anyway.”
She didn’t know what to do, she said.
“I think to myself: ‘What’s next? He’s taken a picture of me, he’s taken a video of me, he’s raped me, he’s urinated on me. I’m wondering what is this man capable of?’ So I’m afraid.”
So not to “trigger him,” she said she returned to the bed and waited to escape while Hoggard watched Trailer Park Boys on his iPad as if nothing had happened and assured her that “I don’t have to worry about STDs or AIDS because he picks them young.”
When he finally left, she said she ignored his instructions to wait 30 minutes and walked the long, painful 2 km to her home, trying to process what had just happened.
“I’d just been raped,” she wept. “I think, ‘Oh my God, I got out of there.’ I think about going to the police, but I worry — I don’t know how powerful this man is. I don’t know if the justice system is going to help me.”
A question she may wonder when her cross-examination by Hoggard’s lawyer resumes in earnest on Thursday.
mmandel@postmedia.com
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.