The case against a man accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl suffered a blow when a B.C. Supreme Court Justice threw out a statement he gave to police after finding it was not given voluntarily.
In a decision issued Jan. 24, Justice Jennifer Duncan found she did not disbelieve Peter Brian George's assertion that he told police he had touched, hugged and kissed the girl while in a local park only after police failed to accommodate his need to go to the bathroom.
As well as sexual assault, George, now 29 years old, stands accused of sexually interfering with the girl between June 30 and Sept. 1, 2016 when she was 15 years old.
He was arrested on May 28, 2017 when police responded to a call from someone who wanted a person to leave their house. George was found about a block away and was identified as wanted on one of the RCMP's files.
According to Duncan's recounting of testimony on whether the statement should be admitted as evidence, George was held in custody at the Prince George RCMP detachment for 14 hours before an interview was conducted. The RCMP officer in charge of the case had opted to wait for a colleague who eventually conducted the interrogation to start his shift.
For most of the interview, George continually denied the girl's allegations - 15 times by the count of his lawyer Tony Zipp - but a bit more than halfway through, he told the officer he needed to go to the bathroom.
Complicating matters, George did not want to use one of the steel toilets in the cells, saying he felt itchy when he used one during a previous time he was in custody. The officer replied that there are only steel toilets in the detachment which was not true - there are porcelain toilets in the employee area outside the cells.
Shortly after that point, George told the officer he had engaged in some over-the-clothing touching with the girl but maintained it went no further than that. The girl is alleging George pinned her down, pulled her pants off and had sex with her.
George was also given a pen and paper and asked to write an apology letter, the court was told, but what was said is not known because the note was lost.
Also playing into the situation, George said he continued to suffer the effects of a head injury from a fall when he was 17 years old, and was feeling hung over because he had been drinking.
The interview was ended after about an hour and George returned to he cell where he ultimately used the toilet.
In deciding against admitting the statement as evidence, Duncan said the issue was not about access to a porcelain toilet.
"It was about the police failing to pay proper heed to Mr. George's basic human requirements, to pause the statement and to escort him to a bathroom, any bathroom," she wrote in her decision. "He was a soft spoken man in police custody who had explained his history of a head injury.
"He said he had needed to go to the bathroom since he had been arrested. It was not up to him to press the issue. He was not in control of the situation."
An ongoing trial on the matter remains before the court.
