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Sudbury coach secretly married woman now accusing him of sexual assault

Abuse happened when David Case coached her when she was a girl, court told

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A well-known Sudbury track coach secretly married an athlete he allegedly sexually abused while coaching her in the mid-1980s when she was a girl, a Sudbury court heard Monday.

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David Case was also a tyrannical control freak, the now-adult woman testified

“It just got so bad with the abuse,” the woman said, her voice breaking, on the first day of a five-day Superior Court trial. “I felt so small. I thought if I stay, I’m going to die. I didn’t want this to be my life. I am better than this. I have to get out.”

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Case, 57, is facing three counts of sexual assault and two counts of simple assault concerning his relationship with the female in the mid- to late-1980s and early 1990s.

The woman said she left the relationship in early 1993 when Case was headed to Toronto for a trip. She said she contacted her mother, got her belongings into several garbage bags, her mother picked her up, and she later jumped on a bus to northwestern Ontario. She separated from Case about a year later.

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The woman said on two occasions in Greater Sudbury when arguments occurred, Case ordered her to strip naked and he locked her out of a ground-level apartment. On one occasion, she said it was in the winter when it was about -15 Celsius.

“I was standing at the door,” she said. “He pushed me outside. I landed on the snow down the steps. It was dark. It was nighttime. I was so cold. I started banging on the door. Eventually, he came to the door and opened up.”

The other incident began with an argument in an upper-floor apartment. The woman said she hid behind a fire door for some time so no one would catch her naked. Case eventually allowed her to return to the unit.

The woman said that when she went to the funeral of a family member in northwestern Ontario, Case did not like that and he called the police on her to indicate she had stolen a pair of his shorts.

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Another time in Greater Sudbury, the woman said she had borrowed the vehicle of Case’s father and was returning home late at night only to find police cruisers waiting for her because the accused had reported the vehicle stolen.

“I was embarrassed,” she said. “I was afraid. If it evolved to him calling the police on me, I knew it was not going to be a good situation. He was going to either hurt me or get yelled at a lot.”

The woman said she never reported the various incidents to police until recently for a variety of reasons.

“I wanted it forgotten,” she said. “I had made a good life for myself despite that. I tried to forget about it.”

The woman said it was Case constantly calling her late at night when she was working that was the final straw.

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“They were unpleasant conversations,” she recalled. “What am I doing? Who’s there? When am I going to be home?”

The woman said she lost an earlier job she had due to Case bothering her at work and accusing her of infidelity.

“I just felt I was in a downward spiral,” she said. “I needed to survive and now I had to look for another job.”

The trial continues Tuesday with cross-examination of the woman by Case’s lawyer, Nick Xynnis.

Case is facing a second sexual assault charge. The trial of Case and Celine Loyer, 30, who face one count of sexual assault involving a single complainant, is scheduled to start Jan. 27 – nearly three years after the pair were charged.

Heis facing a total of eight charges — six counts of sexual assault, one count of assault, and one count of assault causing bodily harm — that concern alleged incidents on Aug. 1, 1984, June 27, 1988, Oct. 1, 2009, and June 17, 2011.

Loyer is facing two charges of sexual assault concerning alleged incidents on Oct. 1, 2009, and June 17, 2011.

Case and Loyer were both committed to trial following a preliminary hearing in the fall of 2018.

Case coached Loyer when she was a sprinter with the DSSG Athletics Club in the late 2000s and maintained a connection with her in subsequent years.

hcarmichael@postmedia.com

Twitter: @HaroldCarmichae

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