Former student’s testimony continues at sexual assault trial of longtime London, Ont. teacher

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When she thinks back to what happened 40 years ago inside her teacher's car during a ride home from a neighbourhood bar, she said her feelings are as raw and real as they were when she was 16.

"I do not feel differently about that now. I felt that at the time. I feel it now. I've always felt it whenever it's come forward into my mind in a big way, in my life in a big way," she said.

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But during the cross-examination of the 56-year-old complainant Tuesday at the Superior Court sexual assault trial in London of Murray MacDonald, 68, she agreed she had applied an adult's lens to some of what she remembered about her time at Central secondary school and specifically her recollection of MacDonald's "suspicious" behaviour long before the encounter in the car.

"I feel now as an adult with life experience . . . that to me now, essentially, it looks like giant red flags," she said.

MacDonald has pleaded not guilty to sexual assault stemming from an alleged 1986 incident when the woman said she was groped and forced to perform a sex act on him inside his car after a night at the Bavarian Tavern on Oxford Street.

The woman, whose identity is protected by court order, testified before the jury Monday to the night when she had gone to the bar with friends, using fake ID, and recalled sitting at a table with MacDonald, her biology teacher and swim coach, before getting a short ride home with him to her family home in the Cherryhill apartments.

Her work with children and youth in 2018, and a disclosure by a friend that her daughter was abused by a coach in 2023, triggered her memories and affected her so intensely she made complaints to the Ontario College of Teachers and eventually to London police.

It was clear during her testimony that the memories of that night are foggy and she said she had tried to block out that entire chapter of her life. She testified she had been a top student but the encounter was so traumatic, she couldn't return to school and spent her days at the downtown library. Her only return to school was to write exams and to sneak into the gym for badminton practice with her playing partner.

Tuesday's cross-examination began with the woman bristling at the suggestion by defence lawyer Lakin Afolabi that the sexual encounter was consensual and the reason the woman did not think so was because MacDonald was a teacher.

"I'm not sure where that is coming from," she said. "No, I felt like I couldn't consent because I couldn't. I just froze and I was in such shock."

She said she always had a good radar for picking up unwanted advances by older men, but she didn't see MacDonald as unsafe before that night.

"I did not see this coming and I was just in shock at what was happening," she said.

She could not recall any chit-chat with MacDonald inside the bar or in the car. She said she "certainly" had a drink, but didn't know if she bought it or if he did.

Afolabi asked if she was affected by alcohol that night. "All I know is that I've had the same few memories very clearly and consistently for 40 years," she said.

She denied initiating the sexual activities or any discussion from MacDonald that they should not proceed.

She testified MacDonald called her home days later and wanted to get together for wine. She initially said she never saw MacDonald again, but did tell investigators about a "vague" memory of him approaching after the incident in the connecting room between classrooms at the back of her Grade 13 biology class.

"I have a vague memory of an interaction in there and leaving, like bolting," she said.

She had also reflected on MacDonald's behaviour at swim team practices before the car encounter that should have been "red flags."

Afolabi pointed to her statements to an Ontario College of Teachers investigator and to a London police officer where she said MacDonald would make jokes with sexual innuendos, give shoulder massages to team members, make comments that they were "stunning" and "beautiful," and give female team members rides home.

"I said to both investigators as an adult, in hindsight, that some of his conduct would, to me, as an adult, be suspicious," she said.

MacDonald never made any advances to her specifically, she said, but there were rumours of his "inappropriate behavour" that may have been the reason he was at Central and that he had an interest in one specific senior female student.

Afolabi suggested none of those events happened and "you're fabricating that to make this encounter more believable."

Said the woman: "I am not fabricating anything."

After the alleged incident in the car, she said she never told anyone, but simply left Central and struggled to complete her high school studies at two other schools.

Disclosing sexual abuse wasn't wanted, she said, not to families or schools, or else "you would be treated very badly, you would be labelled and you would be marked and shunned and shamed."

She said it was a time when "this kind of stuff was very common. There were no boundaries. Teachers weren't educated in this kind of stuff. They weren't held accountable for this stuff."

She added: "You were in these situations of your body was open game whether you liked it or not. And it didn't always mean it was predatory and I never felt him being predatory towards me until that happened that night."

Assistant Crown attorney Jeremy Carnegie closed the Crown's case. The trial continues on Wednesday.