MARTIN: Security camera provides vital evidence in sexual assault case

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There was a time, not so long ago, that James Francis Pritchard likely would have gotten away with his crime.

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But Pritchard was convicted last week of sexual assault with a weapon, despite the Crown not being able to locate its victim, a vulnerable, likely homeless woman who as a result did not testify against him.

Despite that obvious major drawback to her case, Crown prosecutor Samina Dhalla was able to prove Pritchard attacked the woman with a crowbar before forcing her to commit a sexual act.

In his futuristic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) English writer George Orwell created a dystopian society where a totalitarian government used mass surveillance to control the behaviour of the population.

While Orwell didn’t quite get the year right, nor the totalitarian reasoning for such surveillance, in 2024 we are all now under the watchful eye of remote cameras just about everywhere we go.

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His novel even gave us the oft-used phrase, Big Brother is Watching You.

But while Orwell’s Big Brother was a sinister government operator, the surveillance society now finds itself under is often more akin to an older sibling keeping an eye out for our well-being.

Security cameras which caught the exchange between Pritchard and his victim, known only to a crucial witness who came to her rescue and an investigator by the initials CT, captured the crime as it unfolded, allowing Justice Brandy Shaw to find him guilty.

The Good Samaritan heard CT’s cries for help from her nearby residence and went to investigate, interrupting the sexual assault as it was happening and perhaps saving the victim from even further harm.

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But Shaw found it was the closed-circuit TV footage captured from nearby security cameras that allowed her to find CT was attacked by Pritchard and never consented to any sexual contact.

“The CCTV footage shows the accused and CT walking behind the building,” the Calgary Court of Justice judge said, of the incident which occurred in an alley in the city’s southwest.

“The accused lowers his arm and a crowbar that had been concealed in his jacket comes down into his left hand. CT moves in front of the accused. The accused swings the crowbar with both hands, striking CT in the head/neck area on the back right. There was nothing in the video that would be consistent with CT being aware that she was about to be struck on the back of the head. CT goes to the ground.

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“On the ground CT rolls onto her back, with her legs in the air, her knees into her chest and her left arm raised above her face, consistent with trying to protect her head and face.”

Shaw noted the attack continued with Pritchard striking the woman on her arm, or arms, as she attempted to cover her head.

“On zooming into CT’s face, she appears to be in pain, her eyes partially closed and tensed with her mouth open. She is holding her left arm by her body.”

It’s at that point Pritchard pulls his victim to her knees, forcing her into the sexual act that the Good Samaritan interrupted.

Without the footage, Shaw would not have evidence to weigh of what occurred before the sexual encounter, leaving the potential for reasonable doubt as to whether the victim consented.

She said the video and other circumstantial evidence allowed her to conclude the victim did not “subjectively consent” and even if she had it would have been forced from her by the assault with the crowbar.

“During this time CT could be heard yelling and crying out in distress … I find the accused was not just wilfully blind or reckless, but was aware that CT was not consenting.”

In this instance it appears Big Brother wasn’t simply watching, but watching over CT.

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X: @KMartinCourts

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