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Ontario student leaves N.S. university after alleged rapist returns to campus

Ontario student leaves N.S. university after alleged rapist returns to campus
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Ontario student leaves N.S. university after alleged rapist returns to campus

She was an 18-year-old freshman from the Toronto area studying at St. Francis Xavier University, a small-town Nova Scotia school with red brick buildings, green sports fields and a lively school spirit.

He was five years older, a friend of a friend.

The events of one Friday night last November would raise questions about how universities handle sexual assault allegations — and whether they are doing enough about sexual violence.

After a night of hanging out with friends, she realized she forgot her laptop charger in his room at a co-ed residence on the edge of campus.

She texted him asking to go grab it, and he offered to bring it to her room, according to a statement from the woman that was shared with The Canadian Press.

They chatted for a bit, hugged goodbye and then he started to kiss her, she said.

“Confused, I went with it but soon told him, ‘No, we shouldn’t,’ ” the woman, whose name is under a publication ban, said in the statement.

“It all kind of blurs together after that. I don’t remember how he managed to take my clothes off.”

The next thing she recalls is him being inside her, and her telling him no, she said.

“He didn’t stop.”

She says her harrowing experience would be exacerbated in the months ahead by the Antigonish university’s mishandling of the reported sexual assault.

Although St. F.X. swiftly launched an investigation after she came forward and found the accused responsible, it quietly set aside its decision to suspend him for the next academic year — without notifying her.