Warning: This article contains details some may find upsetting and/or triggering.
Editor's note: A publication ban prevents the publication of any information that could potentially identify the complainant in this case.
The alleged victim of several sexual assaults by a Fergus businessman says she didn’t think much of incidents as they came up over time.
But patterns developed and it reached a tipping point in January 2023, when the woman alleges Robert O'Brien touched her inappropriately under her clothing.
The woman testified on the first day of O’Brien’s trial Wednesday at Guelph’s Ontario Court of Justice in front of a packed courtroom.
O’Brien has pleaded not guilty to four counts of sexual assault against the lone complainant.
The woman says O'Brien touched her inappropriately at a social event attended by several people.
“We were all pretty excited,” the woman told the court about the incident on Jan. 15, 2023. “Everyone was having a good time, it was a really good [time] until it wasn’t.”
The woman testified that O’Brien sat next to her at the event while she was looking at a phone.
“He started reaching over, across the seat, putting his hand kind of like on my side and on my hip, and rubbing and grabbing them,” she said. “I just kept playing the (phone) game, I wasn’t acknowledging a whole lot of what was happening.”
She continued on by saying he “started putting his hand up my shirt, and under my bra.”
“He started grabbing and touching my breasts, and pinching them and stuff like that,” she said.
“He kind of migrated back down and was grabbing at the waistline of my pants.”
It didn’t end there, the woman said, adding when she adjusted herself to see the phone screen of the individual in front of her, O’Brien put his hands “inside my pants,” and began touching her bum and groin area.
“When he put his hands under my top, anything that was going on around me that wasn’t touching my body, I’m not 100 per cent sure,” she said.
“It felt like tunnel vision. All I could focus on was him touching me.”
The woman didn’t think anyone else saw what happened.
“As soon as it had stopped, and he was out of the vicinity from me, all I was worried about was getting myself in a safe situation,” she said.
By this time, she said she “just wanted to go home.”
O’Brien, co-owner of a Fergus business, returned and sat next to the woman again.
“I remember him leaning in towards me, and I don’t know the exact words but he told me that if I put my hand in his pants, nobody would know," she said. "I didn’t respond, I kept looking out the window and wasn’t acknowledging.”
“Do you recall why you chose not to respond?” asked Crown attorney Braydon Roberts.
“Because I felt like (responding) ‘no’ was rude,” said the victim, who was much younger than the accused.
The three incidents that preceded this saw her discomfort grow over time.
Before the incidents, the woman testified she had heard stories around the community about O’Brien, but gave him the benefit of the doubt.
“He was very friendly,” the woman said when asked if anything stuck out to her about O’Brien.
The first incident was at a Halloween-themed event in 2021 when O'Brien touched her buttocks.
“He kind of ran into me with his shoulder, into my side or my back and his hand kind of grazed my bum,” she said, adding while she was surprised, she didn’t think much of it at the time.
The second incident in question, in the late summer of 2022.
“I was sitting there ... I don’t know what I was doing, but he came up behind me and then kind of just placed his hand on my back,” she said.
“(It) started from the bottom of my back and kind of like moved downwards.
“When I turned around and gave a reaction, he (was) like ‘I’m so sorry,’ like he felt like he was also shocked.”
She said she “was definitely thrown by it.”
“I did not understand his reaction. I remember being like ‘how do you not mean to do something like that, it’s so intentional,’” she said. “But I didn’t push too hard, I didn’t think about it too hard.”
On another occasion in 2022 she left a location they were both at after he made her feel uncomfortable by comments he made.
It was after this she said she started distancing herself from O’Brien.
“I started to be a little more weary and aware of what was happening around me. I would probably say a little more diligent,” she said.
“It was starting to go to the point where I was realizing it kept happening, and just didn’t know how to put a stop to it at that point.”
Five days have been set aside for the trial. It resumes on Friday, when the woman will be cross-examined by the defence.
