An Edmonton piano teacher wept in court after being convicted of sexually abusing a former student.<\/p>\n
Court of King\u2019s Bench Justice Kathryn Oviatt on Thursday found Cassius Alleyne guilty of sexual interference for kissing and groping a nine-year-old girl during piano lessons. The abuse occurred between 2021 and 2023, when Alleyne taught the girl piano at her home.<\/p>\n
Stressing the case did not come down to a \u201ccredibility contest,\u201d Oviatt said she was more convinced by the girl\u2019s testimony than Alleyne\u2019s, which she said was self-serving and \u201cstrained credulity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alleyne was charged in 2024<\/a> after police received reports he abused a young female student while her mother was in the other room. Police said there might be other victims, and laid charges regarding another complainant<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n Only the set of charges involving the nine-year-old victim proceeded to trial after the Crown sought a stay of proceedings in the other case.<\/p>\n The girl testified Alleyne kissed and groped her over her clothes during lessons, which she eventually disclosed to a school counsellor. Oviatt also heard testimony from the victim\u2019s mother and a police officer, but said only the girl\u2019s testimony was useful in deciding Alleyne\u2019s guilt.<\/p>\n Oviatt ultimately found the victim \u201ccredible and reliable.\u201d<\/p>\n Alleyne, 61, denied any inappropriate touching. He insisted he never hugged his young pupils even if they initiated the hug, maintaining he always kept his hands at his side. He also claimed it would have been physically impossible to touch the girl as alleged, given he was seated beside her in a folding chair. He also raised the issue of her mother in the other room.<\/p>\n Oviatt said Alleyne\u2019s evidence on physical contact with his students felt \u201cself-serving,\u201d adding she didn\u2019t buy the claim that the abuse would have been physically impossible.<\/p>\n She was also confused by his \u201cincreasingly contradictory\u201d statements about being contacted by police. Alleyne initially said he had no inkling there had been an allegation of child sex abuse, but later said he pieced together that the nine-year-old was the complainant \u2014 in part due to an earlier text exchange with the girl\u2019s father.<\/p>\n The judge concluded Alleyne\u2019s evidence was \u201creactive and reconstructive\u201d and did not raise a reasonable doubt about his guilt.<\/p>\n Oviatt allowed Alleyne to remain on release pending sentencing, which will be scheduled May 22. Several of Alleyne\u2019s family members and friends attended Thursday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n jwakefield@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n x.com\/jonnywakefield <\/a><\/p>\n @jonnywakefield.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a> and EdmontonSun.com<\/a> to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Edmonton piano teacher wept in court after being convicted of sexually abusing a former student. Court of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[15912,52,15915,15913,15914,8802],"class_list":["post-36451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-cassius-alleyne","tag-edmonton","tag-groping","tag-kathryn-oviatt","tag-piano-teacher","tag-sexual-interference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}