Canada Global Tv: Barry Wollach, a Calgary anesthesiologist, was denied permission to appeal his conviction for date rape by the Supreme Court of Canada, therefore removing his opportunity for a fresh trial.
The Supreme Court announced it will not hear Wollach’s appeal in a brief statement on its Twitter page.
The Alberta Court of Appeal’s March 16, 2022 judgement was the subject of a motion for leave to appeal, which was denied.
On November 30, 2020, Wollach, 62, was found guilty of sexually assaulting a lady in his Calgary home and was given a 30-month prison sentence.
Wollach was given bail pending appeal a few days after his punishment, nevertheless. The highest court in the province maintained the trial judge’s ruling in March and ordered Wollach to resume serving his sentence.
In October 2019, Stevenson found Wollach guilty of sexual assault for raping a woman he had met online on November 4, 2016.
The doctor persuaded her to visit his house after dinner after they had gone on their first date. She claimed that after arriving, he pressurised her.
Wollach claimed that he had an honest but erroneous idea that the victim had consented, and a three-member panel of the Alberta Court of Appeal agreed with the Crown prosecutor Sarah Clive in their March 16 verdict.
The appeal judges issued a written judgement stating that “the appellant’s main contention at trial was that the complainant had given her agreement by her acts, by physically engaging in the sexual activity.”
“The trial judge dismissed that claim and determined that the plaintiff did not give his or her agreement through words or actions. The appellant acknowledged that he never sought consent from the plaintiff.
“The determination that the appellant made no reasonable steps to obtain and confirm consent, and that the defence therefore had no shred of credibility, is strongly established in the record,” the court found.