In Ottawa, a judge has acquitted former Afghanistan hostage
Joshua Boyle on all charges. Here he is leaving court earlier this afternoon
Boyle was accused of assault sexual assault and unlawful confinement of his
estranged wife Caitlan Coleman. Boyle and Coleman were kidnapped by a Taliban
linked network in Afghanistan in 2012 and spent five years in captivity before
they returned to Canada with their children. Here's what Boyle's lawyer had
to say after the judge's ruling. Obviously, Josh and his family are very
pleased with the result that was achieved today with the decision of his
Honour Judge Doody. It was an extremely thorough review of
all of the evidence and we're very very pleased with the result
Josh, as I've indicated, will not be making any comments not today and not
tomorrow not for some time there is today is really for him and the family
the first step towards getting access and and hopefully if some day a custody
of his children the CBC's Evan Dyer has been at the courthouse all day he has
more details including what the judge weighed in making his ruling. Well this
was a case where there were 19 accusations 19 charges 18 of which
related to various acts against Joshua Boyles wife Caitlan Coleman who we can
identify because she chose to come forward and speak about this case. The
charges included things like forcible confinement several counts of common
assaults and counts of sexual assault including with a weapon ropes in this
case but what we saw was that the judge cited time after time dealing with these
counts and dismissing them cited memory lapses or problems with the reliability
of Caitlan Coleman's memory and she herself in her testimony in this trial
talked about her memory being a bit fuzzy talked about having a bit of a
blank or things being a blur and perhaps in one of the most damning or harmful
statements in terms of the reliability of her testimony.
She told police in her original police statement that some memories could be
inserted some memories could be invented and she talked about things that
appeared in a chargesheet having probably happened but perhaps not or
perhaps having confused them with another time and so all of those issues
taken together led the judge to dismiss these charges one by one saying I don't
believe Joshua Boyle because of his credibility issues he doesn't strike me
as a truthful witness in many cases but I also don't believe or can't believe
Caitlin Coleman and we saw him run through the entire list of charges
dismissing them on that basis and it must be said that in most cases his
issues with Joshua Boyle were about credibility in other words truthfulness
with Caitlin Coleman, they were mostly about reliability in other words memory
but he did also impugn her truthfulness on at least one occasion saying there
was at least one occasion where he believed that her evidence to the court
had not been truthful. And what did the judge have to say about Boyle's behaviour?
Well, he was very harshly critical of Boyle's behaviour the way he conducted
himself as a husband and he certainly condemned the way that he behaved
towards Caitlin Coleman calling it cruel, controlling, degrading and really the
evidence left very little doubt about that what the what happened though was
it in on the specific charges that were alleged with specific times and places
he didn't feel that the evidence rose to the level of beyond a reasonable doubt
and in fact on some occasions he said he didn't even have to apply the reasonable
doubt standard because the evidence didn't go that far so what we saw here
was a trial that really became a high-profile trial because of who was
involved the two people who had just been released from Afghanistan but it
also set a precedent in terms of a sexual assault case because in this case
Caitlin Coleman the alleged victim had her own standing in the new trial was
able to have her own lawyer president with present which is something of a new
departure in Canadian sexual assault cases and yet we saw that that did not
really help her to make her case and convince this judge that the event she
alleged actually happened. The CBC's Evan Dyer at the courthouse in Ottawa.
Caitlin Coleman wasn't in court today but her lawyer spoke to reporters
outside shortly after the proceedings I've had a chance to speak with miss
Coleman she's devastated by the verdict. I think the case is an example of the
challenges that a complainant faces coming forward with allegations of
sexual assault or domestic violence in terms of how things operate in our
criminal justice system and she's needs some time to process what was said today
and try and move on with her life Coleman now lives in the US with the
couple's four children