In a letter sent to his alleged victim in 2020, former MP Harold Lebel said he had “no memory” of having touched or assaulted her three years earlier. “This is an evening of booze I wish I had never experienced,” he wrote.
The complainant at the trial of the former member for Rimouski read, on Wednesday, an email written to Mr. Lebel three years after the assault of which she says she was the victim. The accused, she said, then seemed to want to understand why she was keeping her distance from him. “I was constantly dodging if we crossed paths and we crossed paths less and less,” she told the jury.
In this email, she tells him about the “great break” she experienced in their friendship during the alleged assault at her apartment in Rimouski. “The Harold I had seen a few minutes before had scared me,” she wrote. “All night until dawn, you didn’t let me go. »
Harold Lebel replied that his word “turned him upside down”. “I have no memory of any of that,” he added. “This is an evening of drinking I wish I had never experienced. He also said he was sorry and suggested that they go to “lunch” to talk about it.
However, in his testimony, the alleged victim maintained that he was not intoxicated at the time of the events.
The 60-year-old former MP for Rimouski has been on trial for sexual assault since Monday. The identity of the complainant in this case is to be kept confidential by court order. She is to be cross-examined by counsel for the accused on Wednesday afternoon.
More details will follow.
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