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Defence in officer’s sex assault trial suggests spa incident was concocted

Article from: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/crime/article/1265822--defence-in-officer-s-sex-assault-trial-suggests-spa-incident-was-concocted

When a masseuse performed oral sex on a Toronto police officer at North York “holistic spa,” it was to persuade him not to charge her with offering him sexual services for $100.

And when the furious owner of the spa found out, she suggested they further avert the threat to her business by accusing the officer of sexual assault.

Or so goes the theory of the defence counsel for Det. Const. Mandip Sandhu.

On the second day of Crown witness testimony in Sandhu’s sexual assault trial, lawyer Harry Black used his cross-examinations to paint a picture of the North York spa as a rub-and-tug parlour where masseuses were just as likely to be “on the table as beside it.”

The allegations were firmly denied by both the 44-year-old complainant, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, and the spa owner, Qing Pei Wu.

Black pointed out a number of discrepancies and omissions in the complainant’s testimony on Monday, compared with the interview she did with the Special Investigations Unit on June 3, 2010, the day the alleged assault took place.

She told the SIU that before the man identified himself as a police officer, he asked her if she would “do more” than a massage for $100, and she refused. She did not mention that exchange when testifying Monday.

Through a Mandarin interpreter, the woman said that she did not remember the conversation because it occurred more than two years ago.

Black argued that she did not recall the conversation because it did not happen. Instead, he suggests, she broke the “cardinal rule” of the spa owner, which he said was never to offer sexual services to a customer until they were entirely naked and on the massage bed.

The woman said she never performed or offered to perform sexual acts for any customer. She also denied that she was afraid the police officer would charge her and that she would lose her licence.

However, she did admit that, instead of her previous testimony that the officer asked her to show him the massage rooms on the upper floor (where the alleged assault took place), she followed him upstairs as he took a look around.

Black argued that, once they were in the upstairs massage room, she initiated oral sex.

When cross-examining Wu, the spa owner, through a Mandarin interpreter, Black questioned the two-hour gap between her being informed of the alleged assault and the time police were called. He suggested she used the time to concoct a story with the complainant to avoid losing her licence and business.

Wu denied this, and testified repeatedly that no sex acts were ever performed at her licensed holistic spa.

Black also asked Wu about her history in the massage business, which he said includes a charge of being an inmate in a bawdy house and working at holistic massage centres under investigation for being illegal body rub parlours.

Wu testified that she does not have a criminal record.

Sandhu, a police officer with 31 Division, has been suspended from duty since being charged with sexual assault in September 2010.

The trial continues Wednesday.