(Longueuil) The trial of a police officer who is accused of sexually assaulting a young woman while on duty opened Monday. “I had confidence. I know the police represent the law, they are there to protect us, they have integrity so I was not afraid of him,” the victim said.
The student said she met police officer Yannick Dauphinais on July 20, 2021, at a gas station in La Prairie. The Roussillon intermunicipal police officer reportedly spoke to her and followed her in her patrol car to the parking lot of an IGA a few meters away.
There, the then 41-year-old police officer allegedly asked him for his phone number. “When asked for my phone number, no matter the circumstances, I used to give it out because I had bad experiences in the past. I give it and then I decide whether or not to follow up on the exchanges, ”explained the woman who cannot be identified due to a court order.
“But I had confidence because he was a policeman,” added the 28-year-old at the time.
The next morning, the officer allegedly texted her to see if he could drop by to see her “just two minutes” before she went to work. The young woman accepted, but she hoped to chat with him outside his house. The policeman, who was still on duty, would however have entered his home.
As he was leaving, he allegedly grabbed the victim’s face with his hands and kissed her on the mouth without warning. “He was facing the front door. He turned to me as I put on my sandals. When he approached, I had the impression that he was going to kiss me because I didn’t know him. I had just known him the day before,” she explained at the Longueuil courthouse.
The man would then have lured her to the living room. He would have continued to kiss her and would have touched her buttocks and breasts. At some point, he allegedly took the woman’s left hand and put it on his penis over his work uniform. The victim claims that she froze and that all the while she kept telling him that she had to leave and that she was going to be late for work.
At some point, the policeman allegedly asked her to go upstairs to the bedroom, but she pretended to be on her period. “I remember the words exactly. He then asked me if he could have a treat,” the woman continued. “And, he asked me if it’s okay if I take it out [talking about his penis],” she said.
The victim said she feared the man’s reaction and wanted the assault to end as soon as possible. In context, she opted for the “least worst” scenario. She masturbated him for about two minutes until he ejaculated.
The man washed his hands and headed for the door. Before leaving, he suggested that he could repeat the experiment the next morning.
Troubled, the victim told his morning to a friend the same day. The next day, she also told her boss about it. He encouraged her to file a complaint. He paid her for a taxi to go to the nearest police station in Montreal. The investigation was then entrusted to the Office of Independent Investigations.
Two civilian witnesses, a crime scene investigator and a forensic biologist are due to testify later this week. The criminal trial is held before Judge Bertrand St-Arnaud.
