A former St. Michael’s College School student accused of being part of a group who sexually assaulted two teens with a broomstick in a locker-room in the fall of 2018 may have an alibi for one of the incidents, court heard Wednesday.

The teen pleaded not guilty to six charges including gang sexual assault and sexual assault with a weapon at the start of his trial Wednesday morning. His is the only still-unresolved case that began with seven students from the all-boys’ private school facing charges after a police investigation was triggered by media notifying police about a cellphone video showing a student being sexually assaulted with a broom handle.

Charges were withdrawn against two students last year, and four entered guilty pleas and were sentenced to two years’ probation.

None of the teens, including the victims, can be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The first set of charges laid against the teen — gang sexual assault, sexual assault with a weapon and assault — stemmed from the cellphone video which the Crown alleges was taken on Nov. 7, 2018 by a teen who has since pleading guilty to filming the incident.

The 22-second video was shown in court for the first time Wednesday afternoon.

The officer in charge of the case, Det.-Const. Daniel Sunghing, testified that a teen matching the accused’s “facial features” and descriptions of his clothing can be seen in the video.

Defence lawyer Geary Tomlinson has not conceded the accused is the teen identified by the officer, and will be arguing at the end of the trial that the video should not be admissible as evidence. He suggested Wednesday that the video could have been altered.

The video was not found on the phone of the teen who has admitted to filming it after the phone was seized by police, Sunghing said. The video was airdropped to a number of other students and then a student who was not among the initial group the video was shared with showed the video to then principal Greg Reeves, he said.

“That’s a lot of people who may have opened that file,” Tomlinson said. “There is no way for you tell whether it’s been altered?”

Sunghing said he didn’t believe the video had been altered but said he did not know if it had been altered.

Tomlinson asked if the victim in the video had been shown the video. Sunghing said no.

The accused faces second set of charges of gang sexual assault, sexual assault with a weapon and assault over an October 2018 incident in which another student was sexually assaulted with a broomstick by a group of teenagers. A video of that incident was made and then deleted, according to the facts from the guilty plea of the teen who admitted to filming the sexual assault.

During cross-examination, Tomlinson suggested his client could not have been present at the October 2018 sexual assault, which the victim told police took place on a Wednesday in October after about 5:30 p.m.

The charge initially specified the sexual assault took place on Oct. 17, 2018, and Tomlinson sought to quash the charge, arguing that the teen could not have been present on that day. The Crown was permitted to expand the date range to Oct. 1, 2018 to Oct. 31, 2018, a judge ruled Wednesday.

On the first two Wednesdays of the month, a Presto card which Tomlinson said was used by his client, shows that he would have been in transit by 5:30 p.m.

“If this was his card that would make it next to impossible for him to be in two places at once,” Tomlinson said.

“Next to impossible, yes,” Sunghing said.

Sunghing testified that, upon receiving a report of a Presto card’s use from the defence in January, he tried to find video to corroborate it. However, the videos would not have been kept longer than a month, he said.

He agreed with Tomlinson that the video would not have been available even at the time the accused was charged with the October incident. That sexual assault was first reported in November and the accused teen was charged in December.

Based on a school sports schedule, the sexual assault could not have occured on Oct. 24 and the victim would likely have remembered if it took place on Halloween, Tomlinson suggested. Sunghing agreed that was possible.

Earlier in the day, the Crown played security video from outside the locker-room before, during and after the period of time the November 2018 incident occurred. Sunghing identified a number of students the trial is expected to hear from as well as the victim and the teen he believes to be the accused.

The defence has not conceded that the teen identified in the video is the accused.

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Cross-examination of the officer was abruptly adjourned to the next court date in April in order to address whether the defence could ask questions about a lawsuit filed by one of the victims given a publication ban on the teen’s identity. The accused is not named in the lawsuit.

The start of the trial was plagued with delays because the court equipment in the courtroom was unable to play the videos without repeatedly cutting out, sometimes after only a few seconds. Prosecutor Erin McNamara said the issue was an ongoing one for that courtroom and despite numerous complaints to the Ministry of the Attorney General, it has not been fixed. The courtroom was changed in the afternoon.

The trial continues.