How Can I Be Charged With Sexual Assault If The Victim Consented?
Our firm represents many individuals who are charged with sexual assault and a very common defence that they raise is they say “look I didn’t do this. There was consent by the victim.” At the first meeting with us we don’t have the disclosure for example and the client says to me “Mike how can they charge me? This was consensual. I did nothing wrong. The alleged victim agreed to this”, and I say look that’s probably not going to be her version of events. The police did an investigation and they received a statement from her, a video statement. Either a) she is completely lying or b) she misperceived the events perhaps due to drinking etcetera but you have no choice but defend this. They are not going to just drop the charges because you feel you consented but that’s a very defendable charge if it’s just your word against the complainant. We can very often win that case because of reasonable doubt which is the test in Canada.So that’s the short answer. Obviously the police received a completely different version of events then you are presenting to us and you are entitled to defend yourself and we are going to defend you to the best of our ability to try and win your case.
