Crown wraps up cross-examination of Peter Nygard at sexual assault trial

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This article was published 02/11/2023 (773 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO – The Crown concluded its cross-examination of Peter Nygard on Thursday by showing the jury photos and videos it said contradict some of the fashion mogul’s previous testimony in his sexual assault trial.

Five women – whose identities are protected by a publication ban – have testified that their encounters with Nygard all ended in a top-floor bedroom suite at his company’s Toronto headquarters, where they allege they were sexually assaulted.

The 82-year-old founder of a now-defunct women’s clothing company has pleaded not guilty to five counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement in alleged incidents ranging from the 1980s to mid-2000s.

He denied all allegations against him when he took the stand in his own defence last week and said he did not recall meeting or interacting with four of the five complainants.

Nygard had told the court that he was against drinking and that, aside from red wine he considered to be “healthy,” there was no alcohol in the private suite of his building at 1 Niagara St., in Toronto – disputing some of the complainants’ claims that they consumed drinks in the suite.

Under questioning from Crown attorney Neville Golwalla, Nygard said Thursday that even though he was “not interested” in liquor, he kept unopened “trophy bottles” not meant for drinking – such as gifts from dignitaries – in the suite.

Golwalla then zoomed in on one of the photos taken inside the private suite and pointed out that there was a bottle of Bailey’s Irish cream liqueur, a bottle of vermouth and a bottle of Finnish cloudberry liqueur in the room.

“Bailey’s is a trophy bottle?” Golwalla asked.

“Yes, I believe so,” Nygard replied.

Golwalla also showed the jury a video clip from Nygard’s October 2021 interview with Toronto police, in which Nygard is answering a detective’s questions about the doors in his private suite.

The suite’s entries and exits have featured prominently in the trial, as court heard allegations that some of the complainants felt trapped there and Nygard insisted that it was impossible for someone to get locked in the room.

In the short clip from the police interview, Nygard is looking at a sketch he made of the suite’s layout and tells the detective, “these doors would be difficult to get out … if you didn’t know the code.”

Nygard told Golwalla that he was talking about the door that led to his office, which he’d previously testified was the only exit from his suite that required a passcode. The Crown noted the detective used the plural word – doors – and had also been asking Nygard about doors on “either side” of the bed.

Golwalla also suggested that Nygard misstated the location of a keypad to unlock the door and the direction in which the door from the reception area swung open.

“There was a lot of mistakes made in that interview,” Nygard said, noting that it was a very long conversation with the detective during which he was trying his “best” to remember details from decades ago.

“(There was) a series of memory problems there,” he said. “The kind of details you’re talking about are very minute details.”

The Crown and the defence are expected to make their closing arguments in the trial next week.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 2, 2023.