A 64-year-old man has been convicted of sexually touching an 11-year-old girl at a New Year’s Eve party three years ago.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Jacqueline Dorgan also convicted Rock Joseph Pineault of sexually touching the same girl, then 12, at her mother’s home on Jan. 4, 2013.
She acquitted Pineault, who has glasses and long, grey hair tied back in a ponytail, on a charge of sexual assault.
Dorgan found the girl, whose identity is protected by a court order, to be a credible, candid, careful and believable witness. The defence called no evidence.
Court heard that the girl had known Pineault since she was two years old. He was friends with her mother’s boyfriend and stayed in a camper that he parked in the boyfriend’s driveway.
The girl testified that during a casual party at her mother’s boyfriend’s house on Dec. 31, 2011, she went downstairs to work on a computer in a basement bedroom. Pineault came into the bedroom, put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her onto the bed, she testified. He spread her legs apart and touched her sexually for 15 to 20 seconds while she lay on the bed.
She walked out of the bedroom, but Pineault walked after her, she testified. He came up beside her, held on to her wrist tightly and put her hand in his pocket.
The girl testified that she then went upstairs and sat in a chair. Pineault sat down on her lap with his back facing her. For a fleeting moment, he put his hands behind his back and touched her breasts, she testified.
“She was surprised,” Dorgan said. “Especially considering what had just happened downstairs.”
Her mother saw nothing of these incidents and she told no one, the girl testified.
Pineault, however, continued to be a close family friend, Dorgan said.
On Jan. 4, 2013, Pineault was staying with the family with his camper parked on the property.
The girl testified that she thought she was alone in the home. When she got up to answer the phone, she saw Pineault on the computer.
Pineault came into her bedroom several times. He told her he needed help using the computer, “something about closing a window,” she said.
The girl testified that she saw pornographic images on the computer. She testified that when she stood up, she felt Pineault touching her genital area.
The girl said, “No.” But Pineault said, “Let’s finish what we started,” she recalled.
She testified that she was terrified and crying, and decided to phone a family friend.
Police were called and the girl gave a statement about the two incidents.
Dorgan said she was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Pineault touched the girl on the bed in the basement, that he put her hand in his pocket and that he sat on her lap and rubbed her breasts.
Dorgan also said there was no doubt in her mind Pineault used the porn site as a ruse to get the girl to come out of her bedroom and be with him at the computer.
“He was quite capable of taking the image off the screen himself, or unplugging the computer,” she observed.
A date for Pineault’s sentencing hearing will be set Feb. 25. Dorgan has ordered a pre-sentence report with a psychiatric component to assist her at his sentencing hearing.
