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Client found not guilty after five (5) day trial in the Ontario Court of Justice, Newmarket. K.Q. was a teacher at a school. He was very close with a number of other teachers at the school. On the eve of March break the teachers got together for an end of term social event. At the end of the night four people attended back at the complainant’s home for food, and more drinking. At some point later in the evening, K.Q. and the complainant were in the complainant’s bed. The two were intoxicated. The two had sexual relations. Within about a week, the complainant alleged a sexual assault to the school where they worked, and then went to police and a charge of sexual assault was laid. Joseph Neuberger, Mariya Protsenko were retained as the criminal defence lawyers. Diana Davison joined the defence team as a specialist in false accusations and legal research. The disclosure was carefully reviewed, and a trial strategy was put in place. Careful attention was paid to cross-examination of the Crown witnesses, and developing the client to be ready for testifying at trial. In addition, much of the prosecution’s case revolved around capacity and male sexual stereotypes. The defence, assailed the evidence on the basis that the complainant was not too intoxicated to consent and the stereotypes are unfair to a male accused. In addition, there were text messages between the complainant and K.Q. prior to and after the alleged sexual assault. The defence was able to establish that the complainant had a prior interest in K.Q. that undermined her evidence at trial, and that the post messages from K.Q., although apologetic, were nevertheless simply acknowledgement of the feelings of the complainant but NOT a confession of doing something criminal. The evidence was complex, but after reliance upon relevant case law and focused submissions on key areas of reliability, the defence was able to establish that the crown could not prove lack of consent beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial court agreed that the complainant did not lack capacity and had reliability issues that compromised the Crown’s case. The complainant through cross-examination conceded that her memory was essentially unreliable due to “flashback” type memories and reconstructing her memory piece by piece over a week. The trial judge came to the conclusion that K.Q. was not guilty.