A Montreal photographer accused of sexually assaulting a friend in her sleep is asking to be acquitted, on the pretext that he suffers from sexsomnia and that he acted without ever realizing it.
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“This is not an invention to get out of the charges. It is a disorder of the mind, when the body wakes up, but not the spirit, ”pleaded Me Laurence Juillet, of the defense, Tuesday at the Montreal courthouse.
Yannick Giguère, 45, hopes to get out of it without consequence for the sexual assault on a friend in July 2018. That evening, he had drunk at least three pitchers of sangria before returning home with the complainant.
The two people had slept in the same bed, and it was during the night that the acts were committed.
“His only memory is of waking up during the night to go to the bathroom, then waking up the next day,” Ms.e July.
During the trial, Giguère explained that he suffered from sexual somnambulism. An ex-spouse had even testified to having lived “around 15 to 20” episodes of the genre, while an expert had testified about this medical condition.
Photo QMI Agency, Joël Lemay
Yannick Giguère Tuesday at the Montreal courthouse for his trial for sexual assault.
opportunistic crime
But if sexsomnia does exist, the Crown prosecutor invited the judge not to fall into the trap and to declare Giguère guilty on the whole line.
“It is possible that he has already been a sleepwalker, but here it is simply an opportunistic crime”, pleaded Me Bruno Menard.
The prosecutor thus attacked the credibility of the accused and his various versions given over time.
Confronted by the victim, Giguère had tried to calm her down. Then, to the police, he said it couldn’t have happened. To a psychiatrist, he insisted on his drinking, and finally, at trial, the focus was on his fatigue that night.
Card castle
“He will say what suits him the most, his version evolves according to what he thinks is the best thing for him”, noted Bruno Ménard.
He then recalled that the whole sleepwalking defense was a “house of cards” that only held together on the belief that Giguère truly had an episode of sexsomnia that evening.
He therefore called for the guilt of Giguère for sexual assault. And if the judge came to believe in sleepwalking, the Crown believes that the accused should be found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.
This would mean that he would be forcibly interned until he was no longer a danger to society.
Giguère will be fixed on his fate in January.