Thu, September 30, 2004
EX-NHLER Garth Butcher's wife OK'd his extramarital flings, a former waitress he is accused of raping testified yesterday. The 25-year-old former employee at a Mississauga pub Butcher co-owns told a Brampton jury he said his wife didn't object to him scoring away from home "as long as I don't make the papers."
She claimed he made the comment on Dec. 12, 2002 before she passed out after a night of drinking, later awakening on her stomach on his bed, where he was engaged in uninvited vaginal sex.
The Etobicoke native, a Brock University health and sciences student, said she joined Butcher, another owner, staff and customers at the Clarkson Pump and Pub after work the previous evening.
Court heard she agreed to escort the Regina-born former Leaf defenceman to his hotel, saying staff regularly kept him company while on visits from his home in Washington state.
The woman said she last remembered her 6-foot, 200-pound boss putting his hands on her shoulders.
Later, after waking during sex, she fled and phoned her sister and co-worker girlfriends.
Her sister testified she was "in shock, panting ... crying. She didn't seem like she was fully with it ... almost like a little kid."
Under cross-examination, defence lawyer David Humphrey asked how the woman could remember specific conversations, but not the time, Butcher's sexual advances, or several specifics.
DEFENCE STARTS TODAY
Centre of Forensic Sciences toxicologist Dr. Karen Woodall told Humphrey people who claim to have passed out while drunk later cannot recall conversations, while those who have an alcohol-induced blackout "may be able to continue functioning."
That includes having sex, but a blackout victim "will have no memory" of what happened, she testified.
Court heard Butcher gave his guest an odd-tasting drink, but Woodall said no date-rape drug was found in her blood.
Humphrey plans to open the defence case today.
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