Woman says Fredericton police didn't thoroughly investigate sexual assault allegations

WARNING: This story contains claims of sexual assault that some people might find distressing.

For more than four years, Jordan MacEachern-Johnson couldn't shake the feeling that police didn't take her case seriously.

MacEachern-Johnson was 17 years old in 2017, when she told Fredericton police she'd been sexually assaulted by a man a few years older.

Last fall, after years of working up to it, she got a copy of her file from the police, thinking this would help her find closure. 

Instead, she said, she was struck again by shortcomings in the police investigation. 

"When I looked at the report … that's when it kind of hit me that what had happened was not OK, and how it happened was not OK," she said.

The records, which she shared with CBC News, show that a detective didn't interview her until nearly four months after she first went to police, and that he closed the case before picking up medical evidence from a sexual assault examination kit.

MacEachern-Johnson also feels they show a difference in tone when describing the interview with her and the one with the man.

Charges have not been laid in the case, and MacEachern-Johnson's allegations haven't been tested in court. 

MacEachern-Johnson said she went to the man's house in Fredericton in February 2017, thinking several other friends would be there. Instead, it was just the man and one other person.

She said she was promised a ride home to Oromocto, outside Fredericton, that night, but it never materialized. 

She tried to contact her parents and a friend for a ride but wasn't able to reach anyone. She found herself stuck at the home overnight, and that's when the man sexually assaulted her, she said.

Police notes show the man told the detective the encounter was consensual.

"It just came back to me, blaming myself, because, for example, with the questions like, why didn't you call the police? Why didn't you go sleep in the living room? Why didn't you go running somewhere else? Why didn't you scream for help?" MacEachern-Johnson said.