Sudbury track coach and former sprinter stand trial for sexual assault

A woman told a Sudbury court Monday that on a June night in 2011, David Case handed her a shot of vodka, so they could "cheers to a new friendship."

"Next thing I know my head hits the back of the couch and I have no memory after that point," testified the woman, who cannot be named under a court-ordered publication ban.

She says that in the hours that followed she had a "flashback" where she could recall being sexually assaulted by aspiring Olympic sprinter Celine Loyer, while her coach David Case looked on. 

"I just remember how real it was, how vivid it was," the woman told the court. 

"I felt violated."

The woman says she felt "sick" for the next two weeks, with vomiting and diarrhea and general confusion. 

"I could barely speak or string together a sentence," the woman told the court.

"I've never felt like that."

She says she first met Loyer and Case at the Sudbury restaurant where she worked. They came in regularly for breakfast.

The woman says they came in the morning after the alleged assault as well.

"I was feeling pretty scared. My body's not feeling too good when I see them," the woman testified. "They're here like nothing happened."

Medical records admitted as evidence

The woman testified that she later exchanged e-mails with Case, in which he claimed the woman had attempted to initiate sexual activity with Case and Loyer. 

At the urging of her romantic partner, the woman went to the Sudbury hospital to be examined several days later.

Photographs of bruises on her thighs and scratches on her arm were shown to the court and the record of her exam were entered as evidence.  

The woman also says she reported the alleged sexual assault to Greater Sudbury Police about a week after.

The alleged victim was cross-examined in the afternoon by defence lawyers, who pointed out that in her police interview a week after the alleged assault she said she had four drinks that night, while she told the court she only had a beer and a shot.

"It's easier to remember closer to the event than years later," said Loyer's lawyer, Michael Haraschuk.

"Not in this case," the woman answered back.

Second sex assault trial for Case this month

She also took exception to Haraschuk describing what happened to her as a "blackout." She says her loss of memory was not related to drinking, so she told the court calling it "a loss of consciousness" would be more accurate.

He also suggested that this "flashback" of this sexual assault was just a dream, which she disputed.

Haraschuk pointed out that the woman asked police during her interview whether or not there had been other sexual assault complaints against Case and Loyer.

He suggested that she was only meeting with the officers to gather information.

However she said she wanted to press charges, but was told by the police in 2011 that there wasn't enough evidence to make a sexual assault complaint.

Greater Sudbury police eventually laid charges in 2017, which both Case and Loyer have pleaded not guilty to.

Case stood trial earlier this month on a different set of sexual assault charges, accused by a former teen sprinter that he later married in the 1980s. 

The verdict on those accusations is expected in March.