Ordering his robbery accomplices to strip their victim naked amounted to a sexual assault by a Red Deer man, Alberta’s top court ruled Wednesday.<\/p>\n
In a unanimous decision, a three-member Alberta Court of Appeal panel upheld Leon Daniel Roan’s conviction in connection with a June 15, 2022, attack in an alley in the Central Alberta city.<\/p>\n
Defence counsel Connor Sprague had argued Justice Gordon Hatch erred in his April 22, 2024, ruling in which he found Roan guilty of robbery, sexual assault and breaching a recognizance.<\/p>\n
But the appeal judges said the Alberta Court of Justice judge was correct in finding Roan was a party to both robbing the victim of his clothing and property and violating his sexual integrity.<\/p>\n
“The trial judge did not err in finding that the assault of the complainant occurred in sexual circumstances that violated the sexual integrity of the victim and that as such it constituted a sexual assault,” the appeal court judges said.<\/p>\n
“Nor did the trial judge err in finding that the appellant was a party to both the sexual assault and robbery.”<\/p>\n
They said the evidence established Roan’s criminal intent to commit sexual assault.<\/p>\n
“When the appellant directed the other perpetrators to ‘strip’ the complainant, the appellant had the requisite knowledge that they would remove all his clothing,” they found.<\/p>\n
“The appellant says the trial judge erred in finding he committed sexual assault because the assault was not committed in sexual circumstances.”<\/p>\n
Sprague also argued the final stripping of the victim occurred after Roan had left the scene, so he should not have been convicted of the charge.<\/p>\n
“The appellant accepts the trial judge’s conclusion that sexual motivation or gratification is not necessarily required for sexual assault, but says the trial judge erroneously concluded that the removal of the complainant’s clothing and his embarrassment were sufficient to ground a sexual assault conviction,” they wrote.<\/p>\n
“The trial judge made no error in concluding these actions violated the complainant’s sexual integrity and involved sexual circumstances, constituting a sexual assault.”<\/p>\n
Roan, 43, and three others, two men and a woman, had approached the victim in an alley behind the Turning Point Drop-In Centre in Red Deer and robbed him of his clothing, wallet, credit and bank cards and his driver’s licence.<\/p>\n
Security camera video captured Roan throwing the victim’s empty wallet at his feet after he was stripped to his underwear before walking away. At that point, another robber used a knife to cut off the victim’s underwear leaving him completely naked.<\/p>\n
Roan was sentenced to 5\u00bd years.<\/p>\n