Police dismissed complaint in 2007 about Newfoundland man on trial for abusing youth

Anthony Humby is led out of a provincial court room in St. John's, N.L., on March 19, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sarah Smellie

ST. JOHN’S -- A retired sergeant with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary says she no longer stands by her decision not to charge a man now on trial for more than 70 crimes related to sexual violence against youth.

Sgt. Corinne James told a provincial courtroom in St. John’s Thursday that she was working with the force’s child abuse and sexual assault unit in 2007 when she was asked to follow up on a complaint about Anthony Humby assaulting a youth.

Since then, the police force has changed the way it investigates sexual assault cases, she testified.

“The information, the education, resources, that’s all different today,” she said. “When I review my file now, I have a difference of opinion now than I would have back then.”

Humby was arrested in 2023 when he was 62. He is on trial for charges involving 12 alleged victims.

The alleged victim who complained to police about Humby in 2007 also took the stand on Thursday. Now an adult, the man said he was 15 or 16 at the time he was abused by the accused. His name is protected under a publication ban.

The man said he had hung out with Humby about 10 times before the alleged assault -- Humby had been teaching him how to drive. He said he did not live with his parents at the time and was receiving services for troubled youth.

He said he was chatting with Humby online one day and the accused invited him to his home in a trailer in the north end of St. John’s. He sat with Humby on the couch and they watched a movie, had a few drinks and smoked cannabis. Humby began touching himself and the two had oral sex, the man said.

“I’m pretty sure it was consensual,” the man testified.

He alleges Humby then followed him to the kitchen and raped him.

Crown prosecutor Deidre Badcock asked the man if Humby was aware he was a teenager. The man said yes.

He said he called the police that night. “I felt like I wasn’t listened to or heard by the police. Or believed that something has happened,” he said.

James said she brought Humby in for questioning in 2007 after the man contacted police. She said Humby told her he had engaged in mutual masturbation with a male who produced identification showing he was 20 years old.

She said she did not find grounds to charge Humby and she told him to be more familiar with the people he is sexual with.

A few weeks later, an officer found Humby driving on a remote road around 3 a.m. with three teenage boys as passengers, one of whom was 13. No charges were laid.

In provincial court Thursday, the man said he began using drugs, dropped out of high school and then moved away from Newfoundland in an effort to escape the pain of the alleged assault. His drug use only worsened, and he overdosed several times, he said.

Badcock asked him to point to the person he called Tony Humby. The man jerked his heard toward Humby but kept his eyes on the prosecutor. “I can’t look at him,” he said.

The man has since moved back to Newfoundland and recovered from his drug use. “I have good supports around me. My parents are back in my life. I have a partner,” he said.

When police arrived at his house in 2023 asking him if he would make another statement about Humby to help with their investigation -- triggered by a complaint involving another alleged victim -- the man said he agreed, thinking, “I’ll give it another go, I guess.”

Mark Gruchy, Humby’s defence lawyer, said the man’s account in court did not line up with the first statement he gave to police in 2023. Gruchy said the man told police he hadn’t had contact with Humby before the alleged assault, and didn’t recall where they first met. But in court, Gruchy said, the witness testified that he and Humby had hung out about 10 times, and that the accused had given him driving lessons.

In response, the man said he didn’t remember everything when police first knocked on his door. When he gave his initial statement, he said, officers told him to come back if he remembered anything else. He said he did remember things after the first statement, and then gave more information to police.

By Sarah Smellie

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 28, 2025.