Image: Ed John Credit: Twitter handle of Celeste George
The trial of Ed John 73, prominent Indigenous leader and former B.C. cabinet minister reportedly began Monday in Prince George B.C. Supreme Court with the alleged victim’s emotional testimony in front of a small gallery of onlookers.
John is charged with four counts of having sexual intercourse with the alleged female victim without consent in 1974.
She testified Monday that the sexual assaults began when she was 13 years by John the director of the Doh Day De Claa Friendship Centre in Prince George in which she was employed to help with youth programming.
The witness’s story remained unchanged throughout her cross examination.
The victim testified that John assaulted her twice in his office at the Doh Day De Claa Friendship Centre. The other two offences, she said took place west of Prince George when John claimed to be driving her to a youth conference. She says instead of going to the conference, he assaulted her twice in remote spots along Highway 16.
The witness claimed she was afraid to resist his assaults because he was her boss and her only ride back to Prince George.
When the defence lawyer Tony Paisana asked why she didn’t fight back, the victim said that she did what he asked her to do and as she thought he would have left her there for the bears.
The alleged victim’s testimony that the offences all occurred over the spring and summer of 1974 in the area of Prince George was contradicted by John’s lawyers’ suggestion that the encounters happened the following summer, when the victim would have been 14.
The hereditary chief of the Tl’azt’en Nation, John was appointed to the B.C. cabinet as minister for children and families from November 2000 to June 2001. Being a prominent Indigenous leader and lawyer he has advised the First Nations Summit and helped craft the Charlottetown Accord as well as the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP).
The trial would reportedly continue this week.
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