The boy claimed that he noticed Harouya tailing him and ducked into a second-floor hotel washroom that could only be opened with a hotel card-key. The man managed to enter the washroom as well and soon the stall adjacent to the boy's shook as if the man were masturbating.
"He emerged to find the man with his penis jutting from his pants.
The man sat the boy down, removed the teen's shorts and kissed him 'all over' after touching the boy's genitals, he said.
Sexual acts followed before the man climaxed on the boy's leg and the men's room floor, the boy testified."
Semen matching the man's DNA type was recovered from the stall at the place the boy specified. Harouya was identified because his DNA was already in the police database, for reasons that were not disclosed at trial.
Attempts to trace the man's stalking of the boy with security camera footage, however, soon revealed an unexpected development.
After the alleged assault, the man was seen accompanying the boy to a nearby mall drugstore, where the man purchased Pampers Pull-up diapers for the boy. The boy originally was reluctant to admit this, and then claimed that he accompanied the man because he feared for his life. After buying the diapers, they went out together into a mechanical room connected to the nearby parking lot, but nothing happened there. The boy said he told the man he felt unsafe. When he returned to the mall, he asked shop staff to call the police to report he'd been assaulted. He admitted that during the trip to the parking lot, he had told Harouya he was 18. He claimed he had not asked anyone to call police earlier out of fear for his life.
The boy could not deny that he had suggested buying the diapers, but he claimed that he had done so for atavistic psychological reasons. According to a story in the Ottawa Citizen, he stated that he wanted the diapers "because they reminded him of 'safer times.' He believed that if he was wearing them his attacker 'could not hurt me anymore.'"
However, the boy's mother, under questioning by defense lawyers, testified that the boy had a diaper fetish. "His mother described to police how he would occasionally masturbate while wearing them."
These revelations caused the boy to change his story radically, while still asserting that sexual assault had occurred.
According to theToronto Sun on June 23:
Quote
The teen had told police the accused ordered him to return to Shoppers (drugstore) after the incident, but on Wednesday, via video link from an adjoining room, he said it had been his idea.
"It was me who took him to the mall. Shoppers Drug Mart was my idea and not his."
He said Asperger's patients don't think like other people.
"It was like my brain was completely gone," he testified.
"Except when you went to Shoppers and got Pull-Ups diapers," (defense lawyer Geraldine) Castle-Trudel replied.
It was then that she suggested he enjoyed wearing them.
"No," he replied.
She accused him of using them and hiding them around his house.
He said that had never happened, then admitted it had maybe once. He buried his head in his hands and testified that he and a friend had urinated in them once.
When Castle-Trudel suggested that there had been friction between the teen and his mother over his frequent use of the diapers, he told the court he needed a break and quickly left the building.
"It was me who took him to the mall. Shoppers Drug Mart was my idea and not his."
He said Asperger's patients don't think like other people.
"It was like my brain was completely gone," he testified.
"Except when you went to Shoppers and got Pull-Ups diapers," (defense lawyer Geraldine) Castle-Trudel replied.
It was then that she suggested he enjoyed wearing them.
"No," he replied.
She accused him of using them and hiding them around his house.
He said that had never happened, then admitted it had maybe once. He buried his head in his hands and testified that he and a friend had urinated in them once.
When Castle-Trudel suggested that there had been friction between the teen and his mother over his frequent use of the diapers, he told the court he needed a break and quickly left the building.
The later testimony contradicted the boy's initial testimony that he hadn't worn diapers since he was a small child and only had the urge to own some in order to feel safe after being attacked.
Defense counsel suggested that the boy had been a voluntary participant in all the actions that could be seen to have occurred with Harouya, and that he may have panicked and decided to allege a sexual assault when he realized he had been out on his own much longer than expected by adults looking after him.
In acquitting Harouya of all charges on July 4, Ontario Superior Court Justice Peter Annis said it would be “unsafe” to convict Harouya based on the teen’s “general lack of reliability.”
Harouya had spent 10 months in prison awaiting trial on the charge. He was retained in prison after his acquittal for unspecified 'immigration reasons.'
This story could be treated as humorous or as a collision of two personal tragedies, but I believe the greater perspective is that it shows how sexually divergent youth are being brought up in destructive self-contempt. Possibly the boy was actually uncomfortably forced into a sexual situation and tried to obtain compensation for his discomfort afterward by inducing the man to buy him some cherished diapers (which teenaged diaper fetishists generally find difficult to buy for themselves). If he could simply have admitted that to the court, he could perhaps have achieved a conviction and saved others from the unwanted attentions of a creepy guy. On the other hand, the boy could have been very interested and a voluntary participant in everything that occurred, as defense counsel asserted, only to have later second thoughts based on how his actions or his absence would be thought of by others. He was undoubtedly raised in an atmosphere where his urinary diaper fetish and his possible androphily (attraction to adult males) would both be treated as exceedingly shameful. His lies to the court were clearly rooted in embarrassment that arose out of cultural norms.
Canada only raised its age of consent from 14 to 16 in 2008, and the legal change has fulfilled predictions that it would result in absurd, unnecessary criminalization of people dealing with sexual self-starting teens who were inclined to seek sexual contact or relationships while lying about their age.
In this writer's opinion, Canadian society as a whole has abused a young man who should be able to be proud of his harmlessly divergent sexuality. It also abuses any older male who is placed into any form of legal jeopardy due to the subterfuges of teens who feel compelled to lie about their self-activated sexual initiatives. As a Christian church, we believe that partnership and mutual support in the framework of God's caring are to be advocated over, for example, random acts of washroom sex. At the same time, when people who might mutually wish such a scenario are socially blocked from achieving it, they should at least be able to rely on sensible, humane laws that don't criminalize or embarrass anyone intending, and also doing, no harm.
We pray for this deeply wounded young man and hope that he will succeed in reconciling himself with his unique, God-given sexual nature. We also pray that the older man will be moved to contact the spirit of God's love and apply it to his life.