Police show clothing during trial of Regina man accused of sexually assaulting 12-year-old

REGINA -

Warning: This story contains details of sexual assault some readers may find disturbing.

The trial of a man accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old continued at Court of Queen’s Bench on Thursday morning with two Regina police officers taking the stand.

Christopher Cameron Duke is accused of sexually assaulting the child, who was known to him, on July 31, 2019.

Any information about the alleged victim and witnesses that would identify them is subject to a publication ban.

Cpl. Mark Golaiy, an almost 20-year member of the Regina Police Service (RPS) took the stand first on Thursday morning.

At the time of the initial investigation, Golaiy was a part of the forensic unit and had been for 10 years.

He took blood samples from Duke’s fingers that were put into evidence.

Cst. Tyler Revler was one of the first officers on scene on August 1, 2019. He testified he was the officer who placed Duke under arrest and transported him to cells.

Later that day, he and another officer were sent to the alleged victim’s home to find clothing items both the accused and the alleged victim were wearing at the time of the assault.

During the investigation, the clothing items and other pieces of evidence were placed into a secure hold in a RPS evidence unit and were later sent to a lab to be examined.

FORENSIC ANALYSIS

On Thursday afternoon, court heard testimony from two forensic specialists with the RCMP, Vashni Skipper and Laurie Karchewski.

Karchewski described the type of DNA tests she did on the clothing evidence believed to be Duke’s. She said one of the samples taken found two people’s DNA, with one of those matching the alleged victim.

Defence lawyer Chris MacLeod argued the DNA could have been transferred by another piece of clothing. Karchewski said she wasn’t willing to speculate on how the DNA got there but couldn’t disprove that theory.

Samples from the alleged victim’s sexual assault kit were also sent to Karchewski to examine, one of the samples found some male DNA present.

The type of test couldn’t verify an entire male profile because too much female DNA was present.

To try to better confirm those findings, Skipper was sent the samples to perform a Y-STR test, which ignores the presence of female DNA and focuses entirely on male DNA.

The test concluded the DNA found on the swab from the sexual assault kit matched the DNA from the blood sample taken from Duke.

The Crown is expected to finish providing evidence on Friday. 

ALLEGED VICTIM TAKES THE STAND

The alleged victim, now 14, took the stand on Wednesday. They said during their testimony that the accused had done sexual things to them.

“He hurt me,” the alleged victim said in an interview when asked why they were speaking with police that day in 2019. They then described what happened during the assault.