‘I never did it’: LeBel denies molestation allegations

Harold Lebel emphatically denied the plaintiff’s claims at the start of his testimony at his sexual assault trial Monday morning. If he and the alleged victim actually kissed, he says, the sexual assault allegations are false. “I’ve never done that”.

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• Read more: Complainant describes her hellish night: Lebel allegedly touched the victim

M security.^e Maxim Roy went straight to the point at the start of his client Harold Lebel’s testimony Monday morning.

“Have you, yes or no, been assaulted? [la plaignante]That was the first question asked by the lawyer.

“No. I never did it,” said the former MP for Rimouski.

The politician also asserted that he unhooked the complainant’s bra and insisted on opening the bathroom door where she had taken refuge. Allegations of grabbing her butt or inserting a finger in her anus.

“It’s wrong. No, I never did that. […] I was worried when I went to the toilet and asked if you are fine. I am not forcing anything, I have never done that in my life,” said Mr. Lebel explained.

Kiss of consent

He admitted the complainant’s testimony regarding the kiss they exchanged in the kitchen of his condo, which he described as consensual.

“Yes, it happened,” Harold Lebel admitted, adding that he and the alleged victim were alone at the time and discussed their respective romantic situations. “We were very close, six inches apart, elbow to elbow,” the accused explained, and it lasted “20, 30 seconds.”

“We were both surprised. I was surprised because I wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t force anything. We just stepped back and said, ‘No, no, no.’

Plaintiff testified that Leibel had kissed her last week and that she had felt pressured by her rejection of his advances. She said the accused had unfastened her bra and tried to enter the bathroom where she had taken shelter.

After showering, she would have gone to bed and Leibel would have joined her. She would have accepted him lying on her side to “take it easy”, but Rimoski’s accomplice would have gone so far as to grab her butt and insert his finger into her anus.

A variant version

Harold Lebel had a different version of this on Monday morning. He explained that his friend went to bed with the alleged victim as a third person was already asleep in the bed.

He says he slept “fully clothed” on his back just to sleep and relax.

When he woke up, he put his hand on her shoulder and said, “That girl has a nose in her hair.”

“I immediately backed out. I didn’t feel comfortable being there,” Mr. LeBelle testified.

He later described text and email exchanges, as well as in person, with the woman over the following days and months as normal and “very good.” In February 2020, he says he “fell out of his chair” when the woman confronted him with her allegations that night in the fall of 2017.

He accused the Vice-Chancellor of sexually touching him.

“I responded like a whip (of her activity within the PQ). I responded like someone who wanted to understand what she was writing. As someone said, we are going to talk about it,” the accused said, “should have gone with it and gone to see a lawyer.”

In his testimony last week, the alleged victim told a jury that Harold Lebel told him he “didn’t remember any of it.” “I remember waking up next to you wondering what I was doing there. It’s the evening of Madhu, I wish I hadn’t known,” said Mr. Lebel wrote.

The latter will be cross-examined by Crown prosecutor Manon Godreault on Monday afternoon.

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More details to come.