(Quebec) The alleged victim of Harold Lebel told the court on Tuesday of the “endless night” she says she experienced in October 2017 in the Rimouski apartment of the former PQ member who faces sexual assault charges .
Posted at 5:53 p.m.
The young woman told the jury how the 60-year-old former elected official had touched her repeatedly that night even though she had rejected his advances. She was passing through Rimouski for work and was staying in Mr. LeBel’s condo, whom she considered “like a friend”.
A court order prevents disclosure of the young woman’s name or crucial details that could identify her. But in October 2017, she had to go to Rimouski for work with a colleague. Harold Lebel would have offered to host them for two nights.
During the second evening, the three were talking when around midnight, the other woman went to bed. The complainant and Mr. Lebel found themselves alone, she said, then the conversation would have taken a more personal turn. Mr. LeBel would have started talking about the breakup with his ex-spouse and the difficult times he was going through.
“Then at some point when I was not expecting it at all, Harold put the but on my thighs and then kissed me,” said the complainant. She claims to have been surprised by that. She considered the man, much older than her, as a “father figure”.
“I took a step back, I said to him ‘listen, I’m tired, I’m going to take my shower and go to bed'”, she told the members of the jury at the Rimouski courthouse. .
The man would then have tried to dissuade her from going to bed. “He walked up to me and put his hand on my back and undid my bra […] I repeated again that I didn’t want to, that I was tired and wanted to take a shower and go to bed. »
“It was very aggressive”
The young woman locked herself in the bathroom and barred the door. At one point, she says she felt that the man was trying to open it.
“I was completely in shock in the bathroom, I didn’t understand what was happening. A moment ago he was a good friend, and now he had become someone else. It was very aggressive. »
She says she texted her colleague lying in the apartment, but the latter, asleep, would not have seen the text messages until early morning.
The plaintiff finally left to go to bed on a sofa bed, the same as the day before, located in the living room, thinking that her host had understood that she was not interested in his advances. But moments later, she says Mr. LeBel approached and asked if he could just lay down next to her.
“It’s silly, but I felt bad for telling him no. I was afraid that he no longer wanted to be my friend. Today I find it silly, ”she explained. “I said to myself, he got the message, nothing will happen. I said okay. »
Then she told how the man had started touching her quietly, especially on the buttocks and the anus. “I was wondering: if I say no will he turn into this aggressive person? »
“I don’t remember sleeping that night. It was absolutely endless. I mobilized my whole body not to move a hair. I felt so vulnerable, why did I put myself in this situation, what am I doing here? »
The case “lasted all night”. She says she remembers that in the early morning, her colleague finally read the texts sent in the night, then found the two in bed. The complainant was not sleeping. She says she remembers a “huge discomfort”. Harold LeBel drove them early to a place where the two women had booked a carpooling service (AmigoExpress) to return to Quebec. “No one spoke in the car. »
“Thank you for letting me stick with you, for sure I’m not comfortable this morning, but it does me a lot of good,” Harold LeBel wrote to the complainant a little later in a text message. .
The complainant’s testimony will continue on Wednesday with cross-examination. The 14 jurors – 10 women and four men – will have to decide whether the man is guilty of sexual assault at the end of this trial which is expected to last two to three weeks. Mr. LeBel pleaded not guilty.
Harold LeBel was arrested on December 15, 2020 by police officers from the Sûreté du Québec. The man elected for the first time in 2014 in the riding of Rimouski, then re-elected in 2018, was quickly excluded from the Parti Québécois for at least the duration of the legal process. He decided not to run again in the last elections.