Edmonton bar promoter charged with sexual assault testifies sex with accusers was consensual
Josee St-Onge | CBC News | Posted: November 26, 2019 1:00 PM | Last Updated: November 26, 2019
Warning: This story contains graphic details
An Edmonton bar promoter charged with sexually assaulting 13 women testified Monday that the sexual encounters with his accusers were consensual.
In Edmonton's Court of Queen's Bench, Matthew McKnight, 32, gave his version of the events that transpired on the nights of the alleged offences.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, which are alleged to have taken place between 2010 and 2016.
Defence lawyer Dino Bottos is addressing each allegation in chronological order, starting with a sexual interaction from April 2010.
"She seemed to be enjoying it," said McKnight, when asked by Bottos to describe the woman's behaviour.
The accused also recounted his interactions with another woman, which took place in November 2011, in the office of Lucky 13, a Whyte Avenue bar that has since closed.
Earlier in the trial, the woman testified that she was "extremely drunk" at the time of the alleged offence.
The woman, who can't be named because her identity is protected by a publication ban, said that McKnight penetrated her anally, without her consent.
McKnight testified that the sex was vaginal and consensual.
"She was wet, she seemed to be enjoying what we were doing," he told the court.
He also testified that the woman, who was 18 at the time, did not appear to be too drunk.
"I was confident that she wasn't over-intoxicated," McKnight said.
He said that the sexual interaction ended after a few minutes when the woman asked him to stop.
McKnight also told the court that he asked her to not tell anyone because he was not supposed to be having sex in the office with a patron.
He also recounted the events of a night in April 2012, when he met a woman for a date and eventually returned to his apartment with her.
The woman testified that she was unable to consent to sexual intercourse with him because she was too intoxicated.
McKnight told court the sex was consensual. He described her intoxication as "six out of ten."
"She seemed like an active partner," he said.
McKnight also told the court his version of the events that transpired on a night in December 2013.
He disputed what another witness, Trystin Boyko, had said earlier during the trial.
Boyko had testified that he had gone to McKnight's apartment with two female friends, to continue partying after the bar closed on the night of Dec. 19, 2013.
He had told the court that he believed that all three of them unknowingly consumed alcohol tainted with the drug GHB or gamma-hydroxybutyric acid.
McKnight vehemently denied that he had served them tainted drinks.
He said the complainant was a willing sexual partner.
"She was an active partner in the sex," McKnight told the court. "She definitely knew and enjoyed what was happening at the time."
He said the woman slept over of her own accord, and that Boyko and the other woman left on friendly terms.
"Everyone appeared to think that it was completely normal, which it was," he said.
McKnight is expected to take the stand again Tuesday.