Sex assault sentencing for Sudbury track coach delayed as defence calls for mistrial

Minutes before a former Sudbury track coach was to be sentenced for sexual assault Monday morning, his lawyer asked for a mistrial.  

David Case was convicted last year of sexually assaulting one of his teenage runners in the 1980s. 

Justice Alexander Kurke was about to issue his sentence, when defence lawyer Nicholas Xynnis announced his intention to request a mistrial.

Xynnis pointed to the judge's reasons for conviction from last year, in which he said Kurke was impressed by the alleged victim's "spontaneous disclosure" that she had once held a knife to Case's throat and that it was a "mark of her trustworthiness."

Xynnis told the court that it was "anything but spontaneous" as the woman had given that evidence during a preliminary hearing and said therefore the judge was basing his guilty ruling on an "erroneous misapprehension of the evidence."

"It wasn't that the evidence was misapprehended... it was that there was further evidence put before the court," Justice Kurke said. 

"I'm not sure you're compartmentalizing it correctly."

However, Kurke decided to adjourn the case to a later date to hear arguments about whether he should call a mistrial.

This is the second time Kurke stopped short of handing down sentence.

In December, he was prepared to reveal his decision, when the defence argued that Case was not ready to be sentenced and the hearing scheduled for Monday. 

Case is already scheduled to be back in court on Jan. 13 to be sentenced for sexually assaulting another woman in his Sudbury home in 2011.

His former star sprinter Celine Loyer was also found guilty of sexual assault in that case last year.