Crown says Johnny Meeko showed pattern in mostly targeting Grade 3 girls

Closing arguments in the Johnny Meeko trial will spill over to a third day today as Crown lawyers carefully detail the testimony of nine witnesses who allege a range of sexual assaults against the former teacher.

Meeko, 61, has pleaded not guilty to 32 sex-related charges including assault, sexual assault and sexual interference alleged to have been committed during his decades-long career at Nuiyak Elementary School in Sanikiluaq, Nunavut. He is being tried by a judge alone.

The Crown lawyers spent much of Wednesday going through the testimony of the nine complainants, one by one. They often went back to a taped police interview with Meeko after he was arrested in 2012 in which he confessed to police he had touched many of the complainants, even detailing where and how often.

Meeko took it all back during his trial in August, and said he was intimidated by police when he was interviewed.

The Crown lawyers are also asking Justice Neil Sharkey to consider a similar fact evidence application, which would allow the testimony of the nine complainants to be used in support of one another's accounts.

Usually each witness's evidence is considered independently of one another's.

"The Crown asserts that the similarity in the evidence demonstrates a pattern of behaviour of Mr. Meeko's part of a specific tendency to sexually abuse eight- or nine-year-olds, mostly Grade 3 students, that he was in a teacher-student relationship with," said lawyer Priscilla Ferrazzi.

Meeko's defence lawyer James Morton argued in his closing arguments on Tuesday that the witnesses' testimony is not reliable.

The Crown is expected to wrap up its closing arguments Thursday morning.