What the jury saw in hours of video from the College Street Bar security cameras “is exactly what it looks like,” Crown prosecutor Rick Nathanson told the jury Friday in his closing address at an ongoing Toronto gang sexual assault trial.

The video shows “a young woman forcibly confined during a lengthy and repeated sexual assault, which the perpetrators facilitated in part by giving her stupefying drugs, specifically alcohol and cocaine,” he said.

Nathanson urged the jury to consider how they felt when they saw the graphic video — which has no audio — and why it was so disturbing to watch.

“The fear and suffering on that video was palpable,” he said, describing several moments in which he said it was clear the 24-year-old complainant is either not consenting or is incapable of consenting because she is too intoxicated or unconscious.

The two accused men, Gavin MacMillan, 44, and Enzo DeJesus Carrasco, 34, have testified they engaged in consensual BDSM sexual acts with the complainant over several hours on the night of Dec. 14, 2016, after she demanded to be sexually dominated by them. They have said she was never incapacitated, incoherent or unconscious at any point, and vocally consented throughout.

(BDSM is an acronym covering a range of sexual practices such as bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism.)

In closing arguments Thursday, MacMillan’s lawyer Sean Robichaud argued that someone who does not know about the BDSM dynamic could misinterpret the video as showing sexual assault.

MacMillan, the bar owner, and DeJesus Carrasco, the bar manager, have pleaded not guilty to charges of gang sexual assault, forcible confinement and drugging with intent to facilitate a sexual assault. DeJesus Carrasco also pleaded not guilty to two additional charges of sexual assault, one from when he was alone at the bar with the complainant and repeatedly inserted his hand into her pants, and one from the next morning when the complainant alleges he took her to his apartment and raped her.

In his closing address, Nathanson acknowledged the complainant had a limited memory of what happened that night, which he said was due to the amount of alcohol she had, including three whisky shots in 10 minutes. But, he said, the flashes of what she did remember, including being penetrated against her will and being forced to perform oral sex, were “highly credible and compelling.”

He said that if she was trying to falsely accuse the two men and faking memory loss, as the defence argued, she could have provided far more detail.

The defence suggestion that she lied because she regretted having consensual sex and wanted to avoid telling her boyfriend is a classic “rape myth,” Nathanson said. There were any number of explanations she could have given for the bruises on her knees and she could have simply avoided her boyfriend until her injuries healed, he said.

“It is ridiculous. Reporting this offence is not something she did lightly,” Nathanson said, asking the jury to consider her testimony about how difficult it was to tell her parents, boyfriend and strangers, including paramedics, nurses and the police, about being sexually assaulted and how hard it has been to go through the criminal justice process.

Nathanson said that in order to find the accused guilty of gang sexual assault, the jury only needs to find one point over the several hours where the complainant was not consenting or could not consent — and they don’t need to all agree on the same point and reasons.

He explained that lacking capacity to consent means, in law, that someone is unable to understand the sexual nature of the act, the identity of their partner or partners, and that they could say no.

Nathanson said the jury should disbelieve the “fictions” woven by the two accused men, including that the complainant’s state when she is seen staggering across the bar and slumping into a chair was temporary and caused by “pills” she had taken, as DeJesus Carrasco testified.

Knowing nothing about the pills she’d taken, “he then just gives her cocaine, just because she asked for it?” Nathanson said.

Instead, he said, DeJesus Carrasco’s texts document a woman becoming increasingly intoxicated: “she’s too f---” to go to a sex club, “this b---- is out of control,” “I have girl pass out,” and “she’s dead dead dead.”

DeJesus Carrasco has said the first two texts were about her lewd comments and that in last two he was exaggerating her condition.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Nathanson argued that the complainant was overpowered when she tried to resist and that she ultimately surrendered and complied. He said the accused gave her alcohol and cocaine in order to make her more compliant, arguing that they used the cocaine to wake her up so she could perform sexual acts that she would not be able to do if she were at or near unconsciousness.

To them “she was never more than an object to be used and discarded when she is longer useful,” he said.

Nathanson said that there never was a carefully negotiated BDSM encounter, questioning why MacMillan had no knowledge of the safe word or gesture that DeJesus Carrasco claimed to have arranged with the complainant.

Nathanson also questioned why MacMillan recalled little of what he said to the complainant shortly before the sexual activity began at about 12:10 a.m., though he said it was an entirely new experience for him.

Nathanson said that what can be seen in the video is actually MacMillan and DeJesus Carrasco threatening and intimidating the complainant, which would make any following sexual act non-consensual.

The moments in the early hours of the morning where the complainant appears to be smiling and speaking with the accused could mean that she was still intoxicated, exhausted, euphoric from the cocaine, or simply going along with what was happening in order to be able to leave, he said.

“Surrender to the inevitable is not the same as consent,” he said.

Nathanson said the jury should reject the defence argument that the doctor called as a Crown expert witness was biased because she tweeted at the end of the Jian Ghomeshi sexual assault trial: “It’s a pathetic but sadly unsurprising day for Canadian justice.”

Nathanson said that criticism of the justice system’s handling of sexual assault cases is not an indication of bias or lack of objectivity, quoting a recent decision from the Supreme Court of Canada which acknowledges that “we can — and must — do better” to remedy failings in the justice system when it comes to sexual assault cases.

He said the jury does not need expert evidence to see on the video that the complainant is unconscious at a specific moment, but if they do, they can rely on the doctor’s expert evidence to see the clues: her limp hand, the rippling of her muscles, her lack of immediate pain response.

The jury is expected to begin deliberations Tuesday.