When defence lawyer Ray Dieno was addressing a B.C. Supreme Court jury on Monday, Jan. 20, in his closing submissions before they went to deliberate the fate of his client Benjamin Archie, he posed a question.
”What motive would Mr. Archie have to suddenly turn into an evil sexual predator?” the lawyer asked, implying the alleged violent rape of a woman less than half of Archie’s age, for which he was now standing trial, was not in line with the 72-year-old Kamloops First Nations elder’s character.
What the jurors don’t know, as they sit at this hour in a stark room on the fifth floor of the Kamloops Law Courts deciding whether Archie should be convicted or acquitted of sexual assault or simple assault, is that, according to his criminal history, it’s not out of line at all.
Archie is charged with one count of sexual assault stemming from an alleged incident on Sept. 3, 2012, in which he is accused of violently choking and raping a woman less than half his age.
The Crown has said the attack took place in a remote area off a dirt logging road outside Merritt, while Archie drove the woman from Kamloops to the Kelowna area.
Those circumstances are similar to the last violent incident that landed Archie behind bars — an assault on his common-law wife for which he was handed a four-year jail term in 2006.
In that case, Archie drove his wife to a remote location outside Kamloops and beat her after she refused to have sex with him.
She eventually agreed to have sex with him and he stopped beating her.
In 1999, he was sentenced to 18 months in jail after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl at three B.C. powwows.
Archie has a lengthy criminal history dating back to 1966 for non-sexual offences, as well, including the manslaughter of a 22-year-old Canim Lake woman.
None of Archie’s criminal history was presented to the jury hearing his trial this month in Kamloops.
Check kamloopsthisweek.com for updates on the verdict.
