Editor’s note: The following contains graphic language heard in court that could be disturbing for some readers. There is also a publication ban limiting our ability to report details about the company involved and specifics about its business dealings.
A woman accusing prominent Barrie businessman Paul Sadlon of sexual assault lied to the court, his lawyer told provincial court Justice Joseph Wilson on Friday.
“His evidence is very believable and her evidence is fraught with lies,” defence lawyer Karen Jokinen said during her final summation at the Barrie courthouse.
Sadlon is accused of sexually assaulting a woman following a business meeting on Dec. 4, 2019. Wilson heard from a series of Crown witnesses along with Sadlon, now 89, who took the stand in his own defence during the three-day trial last week.
The woman, whose identity has been protected by a publication ban, told the court she met with Sadlon, who was her client, as well as two of her colleagues and a Sadlon employee in the lunchroom of Paul Sadlon Motors on Bayfield Street nearly two-and-a-half years ago.
As the meeting wound down, Sadlon, she and her colleagues testified, told a crude joke, which Sadlon denied. Her colleagues said there was a sense of discomfort, prompting them both to try to divert the direction of the conversation, but they didn’t notice Sadlon put his hand on the woman’s arm, as the woman had testified.
Her colleagues, Jokinen added, denied the woman’s claim Sadlon asked them to leave the room and neither took ownership to her testimony that one commented at least she still had her coat on when she emerged from the lunchroom.
“She was concerned about losing a big client,” Jokinen said. “From the evidence we heard … (the woman) did not really provide the service that Mr. Sadlon should have been given.”
Jokinen said Sadlon was a huge client for the business, maintains a large presence in the community and is the namesake of two buildings in Barrie. Losing him as a client to another section of the company would have been a blow to her reputation, she continued.
Jokinen reviewed various areas of the woman’s testimony, highlighting the inconsistencies, which she concluded were lies, supporting Sadlon’s contention the allegation is false.
The woman said she didn’t set up the meeting for her colleagues, but they said they didn’t set it up, court heard.
While the woman and her colleagues testified the meeting became jovial, Sadlon testified that after the woman’s two colleagues left the room, he became angry at her and yelled at her for bringing them.
Sadlon testified he told her it was none of her business to do that and her reply was “you’ll be sorry.”
“She made good on her promise. That’s why we’re here today,” Jokinen said on Friday.
The woman testified Sadlon blocked her way to the door after everyone had left the room. She accuses Sadlon of kissing her on the cheek, then on the lips, that he tried to stick his tongue in her mouth and then rubbed his pelvic area against her while moaning and grabbed her breasts.
The woman told the court concerns over confidentiality prevented her from telling her husband about the event, but she did tell a colleague following a small work gathering that evening, which she followed with an email to her superior.
“That is our proverbial red herring,” said Jokinen, who challenged the notion reporting a sexual assault could offend any company’s privacy policies.
The breach, Jokinen charged, was when the woman brought her colleagues to the meeting, which Sadlon said he wasn’t aware was going to happen.
Jokinen dismissed the woman’s assertion Sadlon blocked her way to the door, suggesting she could have gone around the table in the other direction to get to the door.
Crown attorney Miriam Villamil-Pallister said the woman presented as an honest and reliable witness who didn’t exaggerate or embellish evidence and withstood an aggressive cross-examination by co-defence counsel Francesca Yaskiel.
Villamil-Pallister described Sadlon’s testimony as problematic.
“His version of events do not make sense,” she said.
Villamil-Pallister said the focus by the defence on the confidentiality was a distraction of the real issue — the alleged sexual assault. She likened the suggestion the woman went to police for fear of losing the account to another area of the business to “using gasoline to put out a fire."
For her to exit that lunchroom by going all the way around the table, the Crown added, defies logic when the door was so close with the direct route she said Sadlon blocked.
That Sadlon was unhappy with her service, Villamil-Pallister added, is contradicted by Sadlon’s own evidence there were no issues and described his mood during the meeting as happy and jovial.
“The reason why we’re here is because Mr. Sadlon sexually assaulted (the woman),” Villamil-Pallister told the judge.
The inconsistencies outlined by the defence, she added, are minor and don’t dispute the allegation.
“She was an honest, candid witness that kept her composure,” said Villamil-Pallister.
In her reply, Jokinen said there were really only two witnesses — the woman and Sadlon — making it a ‘he-said, she-said’ case.
Wilson is expected to deliver his verdict June 20.
