Lawyer for P.E.I. teacher accused of sex crimes asks judge to acquit client based on lack of evidence

The lawyer for a P.E.I. teacher accused of sexual assault has asked the judge to acquit her client based on a lack of evidence presented by the Crown.

Roger Mbahia was charged with sexual assault and sexual interference — the touching of a person under the age of 16 — on Sept. 29, about two weeks after he started teaching at École Pierre-Chaisson, a K-12 French school in western P.E.I.

Thursday, details about the allegations against Mbahia were made public for the first time. According to the alleged victim, Mbahia quickly touched their genitals over their clothes while moving an object that was on the student’s lap, near their lower abdomen, which made them uncomfortable. 

Mbahia’s lawyer has not argued the touching didn’t take place, but none of the evidence or testimony presented at the trial addressed the issue of whether the touching was accidental, intentional or sexual in nature.

The trial, originally scheduled for two days, didn’t wrap up as planned on Friday. Instead, the judge is now scheduled to deliver a verdict on the motion to acquit in March. The trial could continue at that time if the judge denies the motion.

CBC News is withholding details about the alleged victim and the other students who testified to protect their identities, but they are under the age of 16 and all in the same class. About 120 students across 13 grades attend the school, according to La Commission scolaire de langue française, P.E.I.'s French-language school board.

Before the motion to acquit, the second day of the trial focused on testimony from the alleged victim's classmates. Recordings of the students' police interviews were played in court, and the students answered followup questions from another room in the courthouse by video.

The court heard the students did not get along with their new teacher, ‘Monsieur Roger,’ almost immediately.

“Nobody in the class really liked Monsieur Roger?” Mbahia's lawyer, Alison Ménard, asked one of the students Friday.

“Correct,” the student replied.

The accounts differed, but some students said their new teacher was different from others they'd had.

They knew Mbahia was from another country, and some said his accent and how quickly he spoke made him difficult to understand. Mbahia does not speak English, while many of the students — though enrolled at a francophone school — are anglophone and speak English with their family and friends. 

The students painted their small class as occasionally rambunctious. Many were friends and had gone to school together since kindergarten. Some would break into uncontrollable laughter or crack jokes that would disrupt lessons, the students said, while others would get up to walk around or go to the bathroom — sometimes twice over the course of a single class. One student had a habit of trying to sneak their cellphone out of the classroom.

The students said Mbahia would make them sit in a corner, go into the hall or threaten to send them to the principal’s office. One student said Mbahia wouldn't let them go to the bathroom and would lock the classroom door.