ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Taking the witness stand at his sexual assault trial in St. John’s Tuesday, a 47-year-old man said he was just being friendly late one summer night when he picked up a young woman he didn’t know from the side of the road in his sports car, offered to let her get behind the wheel and took her for a drive.
“So you just let strange 20-year-olds hop in your car and drive it?” prosecutor Jessica Gallant asked Ross Payne on cross-examination.
“That’s what happened that night, yes,” Payne replied.
"You didn't have any concerns that she was out in the middle of the night alone and she might be vulnerable?" Gallant asked.
"No, I thought she just wanted to have fun cruising around in the car, there's no more to it than that," Payne said.
Payne is charged with sexually assaulting the 23-year-old woman that night in July 2018, after picking her up in his Mustang on the road in Holyrood around 12:30 a.m. He has pleaded not guilty and his trial took place in provincial court in St. John's this week.
Red Mustang
The woman testified she had been on a night out with friends, attending the Squidfest concert. Intoxicated and alone, having lost her companions and misplaced her glasses, the woman said she had left the concert area and walked up the road in what she believed to be the direction of her friend’s house. Desperate to get home, she had tried calling her friends before her phone battery died, she said.
While she was walking back toward the concert site, a man pulled up in a red Mustang and rolled down his window, the woman said.
“I said I was trying to get home to St. John’s, can you help me? He said yes,” the woman told the court. “He asked me if I wanted to drive, to which I said no.”
The woman testified to having gaps in her memory due to her level of intoxication, describing herself as being in and out of consciousness and having blackouts. She told the court she remembered looking down and seeing the man’s hand on her thigh, and remembered him putting his hand down the front of her shirt. She remembered him at one point being on top of her in the back seat of the car. She was clear, when asked by Gallant, that she had not asked the man to get on top of her.
“The next thing I remember I was walking up my driveway,” the woman said. “The only reason I remember it was a red car is because I looked back.”
The woman told the court she experienced symptoms the next day that led her to the realization she had been sexually assaulted, including a pain in her lower abdomen. That evening, she received a text from a strange number on her phone, she said.
“I wrote back, 'Who’s this?'” she testified. “He said, ‘Ross, we met last night.’ He might have said something about the red Mustang, I told him he had the wrong number.”
Found his profile on Facebook
The woman went to the hospital the following day. She also gave a statement to police and gave a second statement after searching for the man on Facebook and finding Payne’s profile with a photo of a Mustang.
Forensic testing revealed a male DNA profile matching Payne’s on the clothes the woman had been wearing the night of the concert.
By law, a person cannot consent to sexual activity if they are intoxicated to the point of losing consciousness or control of their body. All sexual contact without consent is a crime.
A number of people with whom the woman had interacted on the night in question described her as being very drunk, and having difficulty walking. One of them testified about the woman holding on to a fence for support.
Accused claims sex was consensual
Payne testified he had engaged in consensual sex with the woman during the drive, saying she had seemed perfectly sober and he had noticed no smell of alcohol.
“Was she difficult to understand? Was she slurring her words? Did she seem to have appropriate reactions to the conversation?” asked defence lawyer Randy Piercey.
“She was best kind,” Payne replied.
Payne testified he had allowed the complainant to get in his car after she stopped him to compliment it and told him that she wanted to go for a ride. She didn’t ask for a ride home until later, he said.
“She liked the car and she wanted to be in it, that was the indication I got,” Payne said, describing his car as an “eye-catcher.” “People like it and it gets you in trouble sometimes.”
Payne said he and the woman drove around for about half an hour, chatting, before she initiated the sexual contact. She directed him to a secluded area and indicated she wanted to have intercourse, he testified, and she had no trouble giving him directions to her house afterward.
Piercey asked Payne if he could be more specific in his descriptions of sexual acts.
“Just out of respect for women, I find it hard to say,” Payne responded.
Cross-examination of complainant
Piercey cross-examined the complainant on her memory of the night, the amount of alcohol she had consumed and her ability to comprehend and function. He questioned her about being upset over a recent breakup and seeing her ex at the concert; she acknowledged that was true.
Gallant cross-examined Payne on his statements that the woman had been completely sober, telling him it was unbelievable to her that he had noticed no signs of alcohol, given other witness testimony. She suggested Payne had seen the woman was vulnerable and picked her up with the goal of having sex with her.
“No. That’s not what I was thinking,” Payne replied.
Gallant and Piercey will make their closing arguments to Judge Lori Marshall on Jan. 7.
Tara Bradbury reports on the justice system and the courts in St. John's.