Noted Indigenous leader Edward John no longer stands accused of repeatedly raping a teenage girl nearly 50 years ago.
A trial on the matter at the Prince George courthouse came to an abrupt end midday Tuesday when Crown prosecutor Michael Klein directed a stay of proceedings.
The step was taken after a morning of combative cross examination by John's lawyer of the complainant and the Crown's sole witness, whose name is shielded by a court-ordered publication ban.
When the woman, now in her 60s, broke down in tears and asked for a break, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Terence Schultes agreed to her request.
About an hour later, Klein returned to the courtroom to tell Schultes the case will not proceed. Klein did not say specifically why the step was made, but the woman did not return to the courtroom following the break.
A stay of proceedings is entered whenever Crown has determined a case is no longer worth pursuing due to a lack of likelihood that there will be a conviction.
John, now 73, had been facing four counts of rape - the term then used for what is now known as sexual assault - alleged to have occurred between March 1 and Sept. 15, 1974 in Prince George, Cluculz Lake and Fraser Lake.
John is a former leader of the First Nations Summit and former B.C. cabinet minister. He is also a hereditary chief of Tl'azt'en Nation in northern B.C. and a lawyer who holds honorary doctor of laws degrees from the University of Northern British Columbia and the University of Victoria.
The trial began Monday with the woman alleging John twice had non-consensual sex with her in his office at the Doh Day De Claa Friendship Centre, where he had been the executive director and she had landed a summer job, and then twice more, in Cluculz Lake and in Fraser Lake, during what was supposed to have been a trip to a youth conference.
According to her testimony, she would have been 13 years old, going on to 14 midway through the summer break from high school, when the incidents happened. She testified she froze and simply obeyed John's commands out of fear of losing her job.
During cross examination, John's lawyer, Tony Paisana worked to establish that the encounters actually occurred a year later, when she would have been as old as 15 years, and that the acts were consensual.
When the woman claimed John had short hair at the time, much like it is now, Paisana presented photographs of John showing his hair was actually shoulder length.
Paisana presented newspaper articles depicting important events related to the centre from the time in question. When the woman said she could not recall the events, Paisana suggested that was because she actually started working at the centre in 1975.
The woman denied the suggestion with a flat "no."
The woman had previously testified she went to police with her allegations in 2017 when the #MeToo movement was gaining attention and a subsequent argument with her husband over whether the women were lying triggered memories of the alleged incidents with John.
The woman agreed that she had been taking counselling at the time she went to police and also admitted to having struggles with drugs and alcohol over the years but maintained it had no significant effect on her memory.
Paisana noted inconsistencies between the various statements she provided to authorities regarding the details of what happened. The woman replied that the discrepancies were due to the stress she was under and that the memories became clearer as she continued to talk about them.
"I didn't lie on purpose," she said.
Paisana then suggested she made mistakes in her statements and that it's hard to remember events from more than 40 years ago.
"It's hard to remember some things but I am absolutely correct in that I was raped four times by Edward John who worked at the Friendship Centre after he hired me in the summer of 1974, when I was only a teenager," she replied. "I was not a part of him choosing to rape me, I was a child, he was the older man, he should've known better."
Paisana asked the woman why she did not quit the job after the first encounter if it was not consensual. In response, the woman maintained she wanted to keep her job and did not think there would be a second time. She went on to claim she quickly lost memory of the incidents.
"When I suffer a trauma, when I'm raped and I suffer something that traumatic, my brain just puts it away somewhere until I can breathe, until I can properly address it, until I'm health enough to address it," she said. "That's why I'm here today, because it has been brought up to me and through all my counselling."
The woman continually expressed frustration with Paisana's line of questioning prompting Schultes to intervene more than once to calm her down and to simply answer the questions as truthfully as possible. But nearly an hour into the proceedings on Tuesday morning, she had had enough.
"I'm sorry, I need a break," she said shortly before the scheduled recess was about to begin. Roughly an hour later, Klein returned to the courtroom to say the proceedings against John had been stayed.
John had maintained a calm and quiet demeanour as he took in the trial from the prisoner's box. Friends and family sat in the gallery and joined him in the main concourse during breaks in testimony.
Following Crown's decision to stay the case, Paisana spoke to the media on behalf of John outside the courthouse.
He noted that due to the trial, John has been unable to attend the Pope's visit this week but the court process showed the allegations did not have merit and that he is relieved to have his named cleared and can get on with the rest of his life.
"As an Indigenous leader it's sad that he wasn't able to participate today in Edmonton but I know he will go home today with his head held high, as he should," Paisana said after also noting that John is a residential school survivor.
Signs expressing support for the woman had been posted on lampposts outside the courthouse saying "Sex with a child = rape," "You are not alone," "I believe you," and "No means no."
The trial had originally been scheduled to last five days.
