Errol Newton, 44, has sat in the dock for two weeks, charged with assault, assault with a weapon, aggravated assault, entering a home with intent to commit an indictable offence and uttering threats.
His ex-wife told the court he choked her with a belt after dragging her downstairs then mounting and pummelling her in her living room on Nov. 25, 2008.
In her final address to the jury, Anne Weinstein said the woman’s evidence showed “a level of detailed lying.”
“Mr. Newton continues to be a thorn in her flesh,” Weinstein said. “This woman wanted to keep Mr. Newton out of her children’s lives so she fabricated a story.”
This included a fictitious trip to a medical clinic, which had no record of her visit.
And paramedics who responded to the call wondered why her head wasn’t bloodied if her attacker had actually smashed her head into the wall — hard enough to break the plaster.
The woman said she told the Children’s Aid Society that Newton texted her with death threats on Nov. 19.
They had no such record.
And — even after claiming to see him lurking outside her home hours before the alleged attack — she never called police.
Cops were happy to home in on Newton, Weinstein said, even though he co-operated and voluntarily handed over his phone.
It contained no threatening messages, and police didn’t even bother getting a warrant from his service provider for a complete records of his calls and texts.
Nor did they recover the woman’s phone, because it was on loan from an ex-boyfriend whose outstanding warrants made him leery of the law.
“The police were satisfied with what they had,” Weinstein said.
Crown prosecutor Caroline Thibault noted the woman did have injuries that were consistent with the markings on the belt.
And when it was entered into evidence, “she couldn’t even look at it,” Thibault said.
“There has been absolutely no suggestion — none — that (the woman) self-inflicted those injuries.”
She scoffed at Newton’s testimony that he was never angry with his ex-wife, who has since moved to Kitchener-Waterloo and hopes to keep custody of their two children.
“He would not deviate from the script,” she told the jury. “He knew you would see his motives.”
The jury began deliberations Tuesday afternoon.
tony.spears@sunmedia.ca
Commentary by the Ottawa Mens Centre
The Jury is being asked to make a custody decision, the problem is, this a criminal court, not a family court. There is a very obvious problem with the Police officer who laid this charge, the crown who prosecuted it, and the Jury, the JURY, who citizens have faith in.
There is something terribly wrong with this Jury. The only conclusion is that it was either accidently or deliberately rigged and its most probably, the later.
That opens up another can of worms, just how, was the crown and the police able to pull this one off?