‘I knew something wasn’t right and I didn’t say anything,’ doctor sex assault trial told
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/05/2023 (856 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A woman who says she was sexually assaulted by her family doctor years before he was arrested cried in court Thursday, as she described the guilt she suffers from not coming forward sooner.
The woman said her mother phoned her in December 2020, after seeing a news story online that the woman’s former family doctor, Arcel Bissonnette, had been arrested.
“I immediately knew what it would be for,” the woman testified.
Bissonnette, 63, is on trial accused of sexually assaulting five female patients during medical examinations at the Ste. Anne Hospital and Seine Medical Centre.
Court has heard all five women stepped forward after police issued a media notice in November 2020 announcing his arrest on charges involving six other female patients.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Bissonnette, 63, is on trial accused of sexually assaulting five female patients during medical examinations at the Ste. Anne Hospital and Seine Medical Centre.
“I didn’t want (them) not to be believed or not to be taken seriously, so I wanted to put it out there that something had happened to me as well,” the woman testifying Thursday told court.
The woman, Bissonnette’s patient for more than a decade, said she was riddled with guilt after learning he had been charged with sex offences against patients.
“I saw him for so long and I knew something wasn’t right and I didn’t say anything,” the woman said, her voice choking with tears.
“If I had just trusted my gut and said something, that would have saved others from going through the same thing.”
“If I had just trusted my gut and said something, that would have saved others from going through the same thing.”
The woman said she visited Bissonnette for annual physical examinations that left her feeling “exposed, uncomfortable and tense.”
The woman said she was required to remove all her clothes prior to the examinations and was provided a paper blanket to cover herself, but Bissonnette on several occasions removed the blanket after taking her weight and blood pressure readings.
The woman described “extremely thorough” breast exams she estimated lasted four times as long as the exams conducted by her current doctor, and long internal exams in which he repeatedly moved his fingers in and out of her vagina.
The woman said personal health issues required that she have the examinations every year, but “if I could find any excuse not to do it, I would sometimes push it back.”
After the exams, “I just felt awful and at the same time relief that it was done,” she said.
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Crown attorney Patrice Miniely asked the woman why she kept seeing Bissonnette.
“The world’s stupidest reason: because I couldn’t find anyone else,” she said. “I was finally able to secure a new doctor I was seeing on a walk-in basis.”
According to medical records, the woman last visited Bissonnette for a physical examination in August 2015.
“Everything was per usual,” she said. “Except that this one, when he left the room, I could see he had an erection.
“At first, I couldn’t believe it… I saw it from the side and there was no mistaking it was an erection.”
The woman said that was the only time she saw Bissonnette with an erection. At previous appointments “I would sometimes look to see if he was getting anything out of this,” she said.
Under cross examination, the woman admitted she told police she had heard Bissonnette had been fired before going online and learning he had been charged with sexual offences.
“You learned what he had been charged with in connection to other women, and then went to police,” defence lawyer Josh Weinstein put to the woman.
“Yes,” she said.
On Monday, a long-time patient testified she saw Bissonnette with an erection following a physical examination in February 2015.
dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca
Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.
Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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