A Nova Scotia man who admitted he tampered with his girlfriend’s condoms resulting in her pregnancy has lost his Supreme Court appeal and must now serve the balance of his 18-month jail sentence on a charge of sexual assault.
Canada’s top court unanimously upheld Craig Jaret Hutchinson’s sexual assault conviction on Friday morning.
Craig Jaret Hutchinson was convicted of sexual assault after he admitted to sabotaging his girlfriend’s condoms with a pin in a bid to get her pregnant. CBC
Hutchinson’s lawyer Luke Craggs said, “It has been a very long battle.
“This matter has been going on for close to seven years. It’s been hard fought and it’s been draining and so obviously it’s a disappointing outcome. But, at the very least, there’s a measure of closure in it.”
In the summer of 2006, Hutchinson thought he could save his flagging relationship by getting his girlfriend pregnant. He surreptitiously poked holes in her condoms.
She eventually became pregnant, but asked for time to think. It was during that period that Hutchinson told her in a series of text messages what he’d done. She called police and had an abortion. A publication ban protects her identity.
“I don’t know if there are going to be any other cases like this. It’s not every day that we normally hear about someone sabotaging the birth control that a woman was counting on,” said Craggs.
In Friday’s 7-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the condom piercer deprived the woman of her ability to consent to sex.
“The accused’s condom sabotage constituted fraud … the result that no consent was obtained,” Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justice Thomas Cromwell wrote on behalf of the court.
Indeed, what he did and what she agreed to were entirely different things. She consented to one and not to the other. The guy’s a sleaze and I’m glad she didn’t let him get away with it.