Robert O’Brien pleaded not responsible to 4 counts of sexual assault for incidents between October 2021 and and January 2023
Warning: This text incorporates particulars some could discover upsetting and/or triggering.
Editor’s word: A publication ban prevents the publication of any info that might probably determine the complainant on this case.
The alleged sufferer of a number of sexual assaults by a Fergus businessman says she didn’t suppose a lot of incidents as they got here up over time.
However patterns developed and it reached a tipping level in January 2023, when the girl alleges Robert O’Brien touched her inappropriately beneath her clothes.
The girl testified on the primary day of O’Brien’s trial Wednesday at Guelph’s Ontario Courtroom of Justice in entrance of a packed courtroom.
O’Brien has pleaded not responsible to 4 counts of sexual assault in opposition to the lone complainant.
The girl says O’Brien touched her inappropriately at a social occasion attended by a number of folks.
“We were all pretty excited,” the girl advised the courtroom concerning the incident on Jan. 15, 2023. “Everyone was having a good time, it was a really good [time] until it wasn’t.”
The girl testified that O’Brien sat subsequent to her on the occasion whereas she was taking a look at a cellphone.
“He started reaching over, across the seat, putting his hand kind of like on my side and on my hip, and rubbing and grabbing them,” she mentioned. “I just kept playing the (phone) game, I wasn’t acknowledging a whole lot of what was happening.”
She continued on by saying he “started putting his hand up my shirt, and under my bra.”
“He started grabbing and touching my breasts, and pinching them and stuff like that,” she mentioned.
“He kind of migrated back down and was grabbing at the waistline of my pants.”
It didn’t finish there, the girl mentioned, including when she adjusted herself to see the cellphone display of the person in entrance of her, O’Brien put his fingers “inside my pants,” and started touching her bum and groin space.
“When he put his hands under my top, anything that was going on around me that wasn’t touching my body, I’m not 100 per cent sure,” she mentioned.
“It felt like tunnel vision. All I could focus on was him touching me.”
The girl didn’t suppose anybody else noticed what occurred.
“As soon as it had stopped, and he was out of the vicinity from me, all I was worried about was getting myself in a safe situation,” she mentioned.
By this time, she mentioned she “just wanted to go home.”
O’Brien, co-owner of a Fergus enterprise, returned and sat subsequent to the girl once more.
“I remember him leaning in towards me, and I don’t know the exact words but he told me that if I put my hand in his pants, nobody would know,” she said. “I didn’t respond, I kept looking out the window and wasn’t acknowledging.”
“Do you recall why you chose not to respond?” requested Crown legal professional Braydon Roberts.
“Because I felt like (responding) ‘no’ was rude,” mentioned the sufferer, who was a lot youthful than the accused.
The three incidents that preceded this noticed her discomfort develop over time.
Earlier than the incidents, the girl testified she had heard tales across the group about O’Brien, however gave him the good thing about the doubt.
“He was very friendly,” the girl mentioned when requested if something caught out to her about O’Brien.
The primary incident was at a Halloween-themed occasion in 2021 when O’Brien touched her buttocks.
“He kind of ran into me with his shoulder, into my side or my back and his hand kind of grazed my bum,” she mentioned, including whereas she was shocked, she didn’t suppose a lot of it on the time.
The second incident in query, within the late summer season of 2022.
“I was sitting there … I don’t know what I was doing, but he came up behind me and then kind of just placed his hand on my back,” she mentioned.
“(It) began from the underside of my again and type of like moved downwards.
“When I turned around and gave a reaction, he (was) like ‘I’m so sorry,’ like he felt like he was also shocked.”
She mentioned she “was definitely thrown by it.”
“I did not understand his reaction. I remember being like ‘how do you not mean to do something like that, it’s so intentional,’” she mentioned. “But I didn’t push too hard, I didn’t think about it too hard.”
On one other event in 2022 she left a location they have been each at after he made her really feel uncomfortable by feedback he made.
It was after this she mentioned she began distancing herself from O’Brien.
“I started to be a little more weary and aware of what was happening around me. I would probably say a little more diligent,” she mentioned.
“It was starting to go to the point where I was realizing it kept happening, and just didn’t know how to put a stop to it at that point.”
5 days have been put aside for the trial. It resumes on Friday, when the girl shall be cross-examined by the defence.
