Dustin Gladue thought he was being arrested for causing a disturbance and not sexual assault, a Red Deer court heard Monday.
Gladue, 24, of Red Deer is charged with sexual assault with a weapon and uttering threats in an April 12, 2008, incident at a Red Deer condominium complex.
Gladue testified in Court of Queen’s Bench he never met the complainant nor did he ever enter her residence around 2 a.m.
When arrested in an alley near the complex Gladue thought the RCMP were there for a disturbance he had been involved in shortly before at his sister’s residence.
Gladue said he was living with his sister for about six weeks and on the night in question became involved in an altercation with another male.
He said he only had one drink of hard liquor and left the residence when his sister threatened to call police.
The alleged victim testified in late March that she awoke with her sleeping granddaughter next to her to find a stranger standing at the foot of her bed saying he would stab her if she didn’t have sex with him.
Glaude told defence lawyer Rick Wyrozub of Ponoka he called another sister Bianca around 2 a.m. so he could stay with her but didn’t have money to get to her house on the other side of town.
The alleged victim picked Gladue out of a 10-person photo lineup presented to her about two hours after the incident.
The woman, in her late 40s, told Justice Kirk Sisson that a loud noise at her door woke her at about 2:10 a.m but figured it was her son coming home.
However, she saw the accused at the foot of her bed holding what she thought was a 30-cm knife above his head.
“He said, ‘Get up I’m going to stab you,’ ” she testified.
She said they went outside to a bench area, where the accused dropped his pants and demanded sex.
The woman said she managed to get a couple of good looks at the man’s face and could tell he was aboriginal.
Gladue is an aboriginal. He testified there were five or six other aboriginal males about his age living in the complex.
Const. Vanessa Philpott, a forensic identification technician, testified that running shoe imprints taken from Gladue shortly after his arrest were similar to a pattern found on the victim’s dining room floor.
Philpott told Crown prosecutor Jason Snider the running shoes were a size 11 K-Swiss brand having a sole pattern which was similar to three impressions left on the floor.
Philpott said there were distinguishing features on Gladue’s soles which weren’t captured in the impressions she lifted.
She also admitted to Wyrozub that she wasn’t familiar with all running shoe patterns.
Wyrozub told Sisson that he’s attempting to call Bianca Gladue as a witness because she’s considered crucial for the defence after talking to her brother around the time of the incident.
jwilson@www.reddeeradvocate.com