Woman testifies group of U.K. sailors sexually assaulted her

A young woman has told the sexual assault trial of a U.K. sailor that she woke up face down and naked on a bed in the barracks of a Halifax-area military base with at least three men performing sex acts on her.

The complainant said she went to sleep in a room with four beds in the Warrior Block of 12 Wing Shearwater next to a sailor and when she awoke, two men were performing sex acts on her from the front and one from behind.

"I could see outlines or shadows of people," she told the Nova Scotia Supreme Court on Thursday of the April 2015 incident. "I heard voices laughing."

Darren Smalley, 38, is charged with sexual assault causing bodily harm and participating in a sexual assault involving one or more people in a case that once involved four accused.

At the time of the incident, Smalley was part of a team of British navy members who were in the area to participate in a naval hockey tournament.

'I was in shock'

The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, said she went in and out of consciousness three times, and recognized Smalley's voice during the incident.

"I didn't know what the hell was going on ... I was in shock," she said, speaking in a soft tone.

She said at one point, someone squeezed her left nipple and it hurt, but she didn't want to scream out of fear they would do something else to her.

Eventually, her friend appeared in the doorway and ran to her side. She remembered it was just her and her friend in the room at that point, and her friend was collecting her clothes.

"I needed to get out," she said, adding that a man came to the door and she told him she needed the hallway cleared of people.

Her friend drove home, and the next morning, she went to see her family doctor. After the appointment, she went home and started researching about her options.

Examined at hospital

She decided to go to the hospital, but still wasn't sure if she was going to report the incident, but decided she would because she wanted to make sure it did not happen to any other woman.

At the hospital, she was examined by a sexual assault nurse, a process that took about five hours.

"It was a horrific experience," she said.

The woman said a military police officer had come to the hospital. She was exhausted, but agreed to be interviewed following her exam.

She was shown a number of photos in the courtroom Thursday, including photos of bruises on her shoulder, back and knee. She told the court it took weeks for the bruises to fade.

She testified that the ordeal eventually caused her to have a "meltdown," and it generally had a negative impact on her education and her life.

"It felt like the bottom had fell out of my world," the woman said.

No consent to sex

Earlier Thursday, the woman said she reluctantly stayed the night in the barracks because her friend was becoming intimate with another member of the team and she did not want to leave her there.

She decided to go to sleep in the bed of one of the British sailors, Simon Radford, because she had met him earlier and had been speaking with him throughout the night.

She testified she gave him a goodnight kiss, as if to say "thank you" for letting her sleep in his single bed, one of four in the room.

When asked if she had consented to sexual activity with Smalley or anyone else, she said: "There was none ... I would not have consented."

On Wednesday, the woman described feeling scared and uncomfortable in a barracks room filled with British navy hockey players, as a naked man lay face down on a bed and other men cheered.

She said she got separated from her friend on the evening of April 9, 2015, after they arrived back at the barracks from a beer run, and she started feeling panicked.

When she couldn't find her friend, she started knocking on doors and calling out her name. She then realized she was alone in a building full of hockey players.

Man naked face down on the bed

She said a player asked her if she wanted to go back to his room, but she said no, believing there was more safety in numbers.

Unable to find her friend, she decided to go to a room they were in earlier in the night, but another player she encountered in the hall told her, "You don't want to go down there."

But the complainant went anyway as it was the only room in the barracks she was familiar with, and she felt that her friend may eventually show up there.

She said the room was full of hockey players and a man was naked face down on a bed. An "inappropriate" comment — which was not divulged in court — was made to her, and she made a comment in response, the woman testified.

'Laughing, cheering, snickering'

"For me, it was extremely threatening to have a group of people I didn't know; they're all together in a small room ... the naked man is next to me and so the more scared I got, the more aggressive and assertive I became as well," the woman said in testimony on Wednesday.

"Nothing seemed out of place to the hockey team. They seemed like this is how they would normally spend a Thursday. They were comfortable. They were cheering at the player who was face down as if this is common practice."

She said there was "laughing, cheering, snickering. They seemed generally amused by the comment and response."

The woman said she went to the female washroom, and her friend came in.

Drank with remaining players

She said in Thursday's testimony that she can't quite recall the order of events for the next portion of the evening, but she eventually made her way back to the room she was in previously and the group of men had departed.

The woman drank from small liquor bottles with the remaining players in the room.

They had a game the next day and seemed eager to go to bed, and she was feeling "heavy" and tired, so she was happy to go to bed. That's when she decided to sleep in Radford's bed.

Her testimony was expected to continue later Thursday.

Charges against two of the sailors were dropped and the Crown stayed charges against Radford earlier in the trial.

The charges against Radford can be reinstituted within one year.