Keith Fraser, Vancouver, B.C. (Vancouver Sun) – A former RCMP officer has been found not guilty of sexually assaulting a youth more than 20 years ago — the second time he’s been acquitted of such charges.
Gary Rudi Groenke, 51, was charged with gross indecency and sexual assault in connection with alleged attacks on the youth in Sechelt, B.C. in the mid to late 1980s.
The alleged victim, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban, claimed he was 12 or 13 years old when Groenke, who was his football coach, sexually assaulted him.
He testified that there were three incidents, including a camping trip to a nearby lake where he claimed Groenke assaulted him while he lay in his sleeping bag.
At trial, Groenke admitted he knew the youth and took him on ride-alongs in his police cruiser and allowed him to fire off his service revolver at a local garbage dump.
But he flatly denied sexually assaulting the victim and produced some documents he argued proved the attacks could not have occurred when alleged.
In her reasons for judgment Friday, B.C. Supreme Court Madam Justice Mary-Ellen Boyd said she had some concerns about Groenke’s credibility and reliability.
But the judge found that while the victim struck her as a very sincere and forthright witness, she had “significant difficulties” with his evidence.
She said his evidence had “evolved and amplified” as time went by and he struck her as a troubled young man.
A second alleged victim who testified at trial, detailing similar attacks, was intelligent and articulate but there were also difficulties with his evidence, the judge concluded.
“Thus, while I have serious doubts about the accused’s own credibility . . . I am nevertheless not satisfied that on the whole of the evidence the Crown has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused has committed the offences.
“I acquit him on both counts.”
Groenke was initially charged with sex attacks on three youths but his case was severed into two separate trials involving two victims, with the charges involving the third victim stayed.
It’s not the first time Groenke, who was a Mountie on the Sunshine Coast from 1983 to 1989, has been found not guilty of sex charges.
In February 2008, he was acquitted in a Victoria courtroom of sex offences against a minor.
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