Today, 16 September 2024, Justice Matthew C. Webber of the Ontario Court of Justice handed down the verdict in the trial of Vice-Admiral Haydn Edmundson (retired) on charges of sexual assault and committing and indecent act. Edmundson was acquitted of both charges.
Edmundson was charged December 2021. However the investigation against him - and against other high-ranking officers of the Canadian Forces - had been leaked long before the charges were laid. And the Canadian Forces and Department of National Defence have offered little or no explanation regarding who may have leaked information regarding ongoing investigation. It is not clear if there has even been any effort to try to uncover the source of the leaks.
What is clear is that these leaks, most of which occurred contemporaneously, destabilized the senior leadership of the Canadian Forces. Many of the officers who were accused of misconduct either chose to step down, or were forced out by political decision-makers. Many of the allegations, like those against Vice-Admiral Edmundson, were dated and appeared to have come to the attention of the military police as a result of claims made under the Class Action for Sexual Misconduct in the Canadian Forces.
The allegations against Vice-Admiral Edmundson were alleged to have occurred in November 1991, 30 years before he was charged. At the material time, the Code of Service Discipline did not have jurisdiction over sexual assault alleged to have occurred in Canada. The allegations against Edmundson were alleged to have occurred outside Canada; however, the charges were laid under the civilian criminal justice system.
Edmundson's trial was conducted over 8 non-consecutive days, beginning 8 February 2024. After closing arguments were heard in early April of this year, Justice Webber adjourned to consider the evidence and prepare his verdict. He twice extended the anticipated date of the verdict, most recently, on 27 August 2024, indicating that he would hand down his judgment and reasons on 16 September 2024.
Justice Webber held that the Crown had failed to prove the case to the criminal standard - beyond a reasonable doubt. He cited concerns with the complainant’s memory of what happened more than 30 years ago, and a lack of evidence to corroborate her account, stating: "There are just too many problems, and I’m not in the business of … declaring what happened. That’s not my job ... my job is to just decide whether or not guilt has been proven to the requisite standard, and it hasn’t ...”.
Regarding the alleged "indecent act", the complaint testified that she "went berserk", yelling at Edmundson and turning on the lights to wake the officer who allegedly occupied a berth in the same quarters. However, that purported officer was never identified, and Edmundson testified that he was the sole occupant of the quarters. Nor was there any evidence from anyone else indicating that such a disturbance had occurred. Justice Webber concluded that he did not believe that the complainant could have caused such a disruption on board a navy ship at night without notice from others.
Some of the surrounding evidence regarding the alleged sexual assault was purportedly corroborated by another witness (whose identity was protected by a publication ban). However, during the trial, when cross-examining the witness, Edmundson's lawyer, Brian Greenspan, produced a transcript of an interview of that witness by CBC reporter Ashley Burke. Greenspan argued that the reporter told the witness key details of the complainant's story before asking her any questions, and that the witness would not otherwise have been able to corroborate the story.
In his decision, Justice Webber said the witness' evidence “... cannot be relied upon in any respect to corroborate that evidence of the complainant, because it’s it’s clearly a tainted recollection, doesn’t represent a real memory.”
This was the last adjudication of allegations of sexual misconduct against former General Officers and Flag Officers (GOFO) of the Canadian Forces. There have been no convictions, and, in some matters, charges were never brought, or prosecutions were stayed.
And the Canadian public still does not know who leaked information relating to the military police investigations.
Further information regarding Vice-Admiral Edmundson's (retired) acquittal may be found in reports by:
CBC News
Global News
CTV News
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