A provincial court judge brusquely shut down the lawyer of a Halifax cabbie accused of sexual assault for focusing on the complainant’s clothing.
“I don’t care if she was topless,” Judge Gregory Lenehan told lawyer Godfred Chongatera on the first day of the three-day trial Tuesday in Halifax. “What difference does it make? … What she was wearing is irrelevant.”
Chongatera represents Tesfom Kidane Mengis, 37, who is accused of sexually assaulting a young woman last year while driving her to an address in Halifax.
The complainant, who cannot be identified, told the court that Mengis forcibly kissed her and pulled up her skirt after the cab arrived in front of her apartment.
The Halifax university student said the incident occurred after she was out partying with friends on the evening of Jan. 5-6, 2019. After having drinks at an apartment in Halifax, the group went to the Toothy Moose bar in downtown Halifax at about 12:30 a.m.
She said she was drunk by the time they left the bar at about 3:30 a.m. for a house party in Halifax, where she became more intoxicated.
After she was sick at the party and said she wanted to go home, a friend called her a cab. Her friend had to help her into the front seat of the cab.
“I don’t remember the cab drive,” she said through tears while answering questions from Crown attorney Rick Woodburn. “I passed out.”
She said she woke up after the cab arrived in front of her apartment. She said Mengis told her she didn’t need to pay.
"I said, what do you mean I don't have to pay?"
She said the cabbie then grabbed her head from the back "and pulled me to him,” she said. “He started kissing me. I tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let go of my head.”
When Woodburn asked if she had sought this attention or accepted the kiss in exchange for the cab ride home, she replied “absolutely not.”
The woman said Mengis also “ripped up” her skirt, bringing it to about halfway up her back.
She identified Mengis in the courtroom as the defendant.
The judge’s reprimand to Chongatera was sparked by a part of his cross-examination when he asked the woman what else she was wearing besides the leather skirt.
The lawyer tried to explain that his questioning was in response to the Crown’s questions about how Mengis lifted her skirt. But Chongatera then said, “I’ll leave that,” referring to the line of questioning.
Woodburn called two other witnesses on Tuesday, including the dispatcher who handled calls on the night in question for Yellow Cab, for whom Mengis was a driver. (His licence was suspended in January 2019 in the wake of the sexual assault charge.)
The dispatcher confirmed that the complainant’s friend called Yellow Cab in the early hours of Jan. 6, 2019, and other details around the time and place of the request for the cab.
The complainant’s friend also took the stand as a Crown witness. The young woman pointed out Mengis as the cab driver who picked up the complainant but under cross-examination she said she didn’t get a good look at the driver.
Chongatera said there were inconsistencies in her testimony Tuesday compared to her statements to police the day after the alleged assault. For example, she said in court that the complainant wasn’t “aggressive” with her in an argument over whether the cab was needed. But in her statement to police she said her friend was “a bit aggressive” in pushing her away as she tried to help her friend into the cab.
The defence also argued that she was inconsistent in whether or not she paid for her own drinks at the bar between her police statement and her testimony.
The witness said she may have been “mixed up” because her attention was on her friend at the time they were talking to the police.
A translator rendered the proceedings into the Tigrinya language for Mengis on Tuesday. That language is used in countries such as Eritrea and Ethiopia.
The trial will continue Wednesday morning.
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