The Bagotville base soldier was charged with sexual assault

Master Corporal, member of 3^at Maintenance Squadron, appeared Monday afternoon before Military Judge Martin Pelletier of the Martial Court.

The session was held at the Language School near the Bagotville military base.

The soldier faces three charges, including one of sexual assault causing bodily harm, and two of sexual assault for incidents allegedly occurring between December 2015 and March 2017 , at or near the Bagotville military base. The cases were filed at the end of July 2021.

The publication ban protects the identity of the victim, represented by Major Elisabeth Baby-Cormier and Major Antoine Desaulniers. The defense was provided by Mr.^at Jean-Marc Tremblay and M.^at Samuel McAuliffe.

The room configuration covered the portion of the hearing that began around 3 pm Monday, which is in the preliminary motions stage before the trial begins at 1:30 pm Tuesday.

The media was unable to attend Master Corporal Claude Houde’s demonstration at the site, because the room was deemed too small, the office of the Chief Military Judge told us. Only listening through a conference call is possible, where exchanges are sometimes hard to hear.

Room layout

The placement of the screen, to allow the victim to testify during the trial without seeing the accused, resulted in some exchanges between the prosecution, defense and judge, who showed their reluctance in the face of the size of the room. .

Said the judge to himself very worried by the space available and the proximity between the witnesses, the lawyers and the judge, with the aim of conducting the trial. The request was suspended until a solution was determined Tuesday morning.

The sound quality of the conference call did not allow the pleas recorded by Master Corporal Houde to be heard at the conclusion of the hearing. At the time of this writing, it is not possible to speak to M^at Jean-Marc Tremblay.