Condom-piercing leads to sex assault conviction

A Nova Scotia man has been convicted of sexual assault for puncturing his girlfriend's condoms with a pin in an effort to get her pregnant and save their relationship.

Craig Jaret Hutchinson, 41, of Clyde River, was charged with aggravated sexual assault in 2006.

Hutchinson had been dating the woman for several months in 2006, and she had made it clear she did not want to get pregnant. The couple used condoms almost all the time.

In the summer of that year, the woman was thinking of ending the relationship. 

Hutchinson thought if she got pregnant, their relationship would be saved, the court heard, so he poked a pin in all the condoms she had.

The woman, whose identity is protected by court order, did become pregnant.

But when Hutchinson confessed what he had done in a series of text messages, she called the RCMP and had him charged.

The court heard that the woman subsequently had an abortion, and then suffered an infection of her uterus.

Hutchinson is to be sentenced in December.

This was Hutchinson's second trial on the charge, heard by Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Richard Coughlan.

In order to find Hutchinson guilty of aggravated sexual assault, Hutchinson would have had to endanger the woman's life, Coughlan said

The Crown attorney drew parallels to cases where an HIV positive person had unprotected sex, and failed to tell their partner about the infection.

But Coughlan rejected that comparison, and in the end, Hutchinson was convicted on the lesser charge.

In  2009,  he was found not guilty by Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Gerald Moir, who ruled that although Hutchinson's actions were fraudulent and "dastardly," they did not constitute a sexual assault.

The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal ordered a new trial last year.

In a split decision, two judges on a three-member panel found that the woman had not consented to unprotected sex.