Simon Houle pleaded not guilty Friday morning to a charge of breach of probation. If found guilty, he could lose the benefit of the conditional discharge he obtained after pleading guilty to sexual assault and voyeurism.
Last June, the engineer had this sentence: a conditional discharge – which means that he will not have a criminal record – and a three-year probation, accompanied by a list of conditions to be respected. One of them orders him not to disturb public order and to have good conduct.
The Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) accuses him of not having respected this condition.
Because a Quebecer accuses him of having grabbed her buttocks on July 4 when they were both on vacation in Cuba. She filed a complaint with the police upon her return to the country.
These gestures would have been made only two weeks after the pronouncement of the sentence and its conditions.
The case of Simon Houle has caused a lot of talk, because many people believe that the sentence imposed was far too lenient. The judge who pronounced it, Matthieu Poliquin, of the Court of Quebec, was also denounced in the public square for some of his remarks made in the decision, for example, that the aggression had “taken place, after all , fairly quickly” and its conclusion that a conviction would therefore have “particularly negative and disproportionate consequences […]which could hamper his career.
Friday morning, at the Saint-Jérôme courthouse, Simon Houle pleaded “not guilty” to this charge of breach of probation by the mouth of his lawyer, Mr.e Peter Spain.
The accused was not present.
The Crown has already forwarded the evidence to Ms.e Spain and the case will be back in front of a judge in February.