HALIFAX — The family doctor of a young woman who alleges she was gang raped by British sailors has testified that the complainant was shaking and upset when she examined her hours after the alleged incident.
The Halifax woman told Darren Smalley’s sexual assault trial that she has been the woman’s family doctor her whole life, but their relationship evolved after the complainant lost a parent.
The doctor says she messaged the woman on April 9, 2015 — the day she went to 12 Wing Shearwater to watch the Royal Navy play a hockey game — because it was a tough anniversary for the complainant.
At 3:30 a.m. on April 10, 2015, the woman texted the doctor saying she needed to see her urgently, but she did not receive the message until later that morning, when she told the complainant to come into the office.
When the complainant, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, came into the examination room, she told her “that she was gang raped, and began to cry,” she said.
Smalley, 38, is charged with sexual assault causing bodily harm and participating in a sexual assault involving one or more people at Shearwater’s barracks.
The doctor said the young woman was trembling, and they discussed reporting the incident, but the complainant said she just wanted to move forward.
She says she examined the woman for sexually transmitted infections, and that she observed bruises in different areas on her body.
Later that day, the complainant told her she was having second thoughts about not reporting the incident and raised concerns about HIV infection.
“She’s a very tough girl,” the doctor said of the complainant.
The doctor says she consulted with other doctors and phoned the complainant to tell her to go to the hospital emergency room. She met her there, and they waited a number of hours for her to see a sexual assault nurse.
Eventually, military police arrived at the hospital.
After her exam with the sexual assault nurses, they all went to a military police office, where the complainant was interviewed by investigators. She said she waited in a boardroom with the woman’s friend.
She told the court she didn’t try to influence the complainant on whether to go to the police.
The doctor said after the sexual assault, their relationship evolved further, and she found her another family doctor.
She said she has been a mentor of sorts to the complainant, and they would sometimes describe each other as “faux daughter” and “faux mother.”