Southeastern Manitoba man found not guilty of sexually assaulting daughter

A southeastern Manitoba man, who was accused of sexual assaulting his 11-year-old daughter, was found not guilty on all charges after his trial ended last year.

Provincial court Judge Michael Clark delivered his decision to acquit the man on Jan. 6 in a Winnipeg courtroom. The Carillon can’t identify the victim or the accused due to a publication ban.

The three-day trial was held in 2025 from Nov. 25 to Nov. 27 in a Steinbach courtroom. The 38-year-old man pleaded not guilty to sexual assault and sexual interference charges dating from March 7, 2020 to Nov. 1, 2022.

Both the 11-year-old daughter and the father testified during the trial as the only witnesses. He was accused of touching his daughter’s vagina multiple times while they both were clothed and sleeping in bed. When testifying, the daughter said her father’s hand would hover over her vagina and then rest on it while they cuddled in bed. She said the alleged incidents first happened when she was six or seven years old and the last incident happened when she was seven or eight.

Clark said the Crown prosecutor Caitlin Hentig didn’t prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.

“This cannot be a credibility contest, with a conviction if the complainant wins the contest or an acquittal if the accused wins the contest,” said Clark. “To treat it as such would shift the burden of proof.”

He pointed to inconsistencies throughout the child’s testimony that raised “serious concerns” about their reliability. Clark highlighted how the child testified under cross examination that the incident’s details became clearer when discussing it with her mother and older sister, “jogging her memory.” He agreed with the defence lawyers’ argument that the mother helped her daughter form her story.

The daughter also couldn’t confirm if her father was awake or sleeping when the alleged touching happened and whether it was accidental or not, Clark said. There was also no evidence of rubbing or sexual nature to the touching.

“The evidence of children should not be held as inherently unreliable. But at the same time, the onus of proof of a criminal case remains the same: beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

Clark noted the father “completely denied” intentionally touching his daughter’s vagina while testifying, something Hentig didn’t challenge under cross examination.

Instead she focused her questions on drinking alcohol. But the father said he had strict limits on drinking because of his employment. The father testified he couldn’t say how many times he shared a bed alone with his daughter or her siblings, saying the children developed their own rotation for who would sleep in the bed.

Both the daughter and the father said the door would remain open while sleeping.

Clark said he believed the father’s testimony, which made the basis for the acquittal.