Sexual assault conviction results in 30-month jail sentence

By Tim Kalinowski on August 26, 2021.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com

A Lethbridge man convicted of sexually assaulting a woman in his home while she was passed out has received a 30-month jail sentence.
Ivan Iain Palmer was found guilty in March on one count of sexual assault. Justice Vaughan Hartigan handed down his sentence for Palmer in the Lethbridge Court of Queen’s Bench on Tuesday.
At the time of conviction, Hartigan said the man was not always truthful when he testified at his sexual assault trial in February, and only tried “to paint himself in a better light with the court.”
During his trial the victim, who can’t be identified under a court-ordered publication ban, testified she and her girlfriend were at Palmer’s northside residence Nov. 2, 2019, where they visited, watched TV and drank heavily.
Eventually the woman became so intoxicated she had to be helped to a couch in Palmer’s bedroom, where she passed out and her girlfriend and Palmer’s wife covered her with a blanket.
The woman testified that when she woke up later, someone was touching her, and her pants and underwear had been pulled down to her ankles.
At first she thought she might have dreamed or imagined it, or that her girlfriend had touched her, but when her girlfriend denied it, the woman realized it must have been Palmer because he was the only person in the room other than herself.
Palmer denied touching the woman, and testified that sometime after she had been placed on the couch, he went to the kitchen to heat up some food, and returned to the bedroom where he sat on the corner of his bed near the couch and turned on the TV. He said the woman woke up with a panicked look on her face, and asked, “where am I, what’s going on?”
Lethbridge lawyer Greg White said there was reasonable doubt whether the woman actually felt anyone touch her, and if someone had, it could have been any of the other adults in the home, particularly the woman’s girlfriend.
“She was so drunk she could have done it herself,” White suggested during his closing arguments Feb. 9.
The Court did not agree, and Palmer, who has been out on bail while awaiting the outcome of the trial, will serve the full 30 months.
-With files from Delon Shurtz

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