B.C. court hears BTO member Tim Bachman had 'sick' relationship with girl, 11

Tim Bachman, a former member of the rock group Bachman Turner Overdrive, leaves the B.C. Provincial Courthouse in Chilliwack, Monday, April 8, 2013. Bachman is charged with touching for a sexual purpose and sexual interference of a person under 14. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Eric Dreger

A co-founder of iconic Canadian rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive had a sexual relationship with a girl between the age of 11 and 14, a B.C. judge was told this week.

"I felt the relationship was very sick," Stacy Bohun, 24, recalled during court testimony in B.C. Supreme Court, where Tim Bachman is on trial for sex assault, sexual interference of a person under 14 and sexual touching of a young person.

"He would get me to sit on his lap and kiss him," she added. "One time he tried to French kiss me ... It was just a lot of weird, inappropriate things."

A ban on publication was imposed in 2010 on the name of Bachman to shield the identity of the complainant. But the bans on both Bachman and Bohun were lifted Wednesday by Justice Neill Brown after an application by a reporter with The Canadian Press.

The request was for the ban to be lifted on Bachman's name, but Bohun told the judge she didn't mind being publicly identified.

The judge said usually the identities of sex assault complainants are shielded to protect their privacy, but he lifted the ban on Bohun's name at her request.

"I'm not afraid," Bohun, now 24, said in an interview outside court after the judge's ruling. "I want people to know it's okay to talk about it."

She said children cannot provide consent to having a sexual relationship with an adult.

"It took me a long time to realize that," Bohun said outside court.

At the time of the alleged sexual abuse, from 2000 to 2004, Bohun was a foster child living in Bachman's home in the Fraser Valley.

She recalled having a troubled childhood. When she was a one-year-old, her three-year-old sister, Casey Bohun, vanished without a trace from the family home in Delta, B.C., in August 1989. Her mother, Barbara Bohun, took her own life in 2001 while Stacy was in foster care at the Bachman home.

"I miss her every day," Stacy Bohun said of her mother outside court as tears welled in her eyes.

"I can't imagine losing my own baby," she added, noting she now has a baby, born last July, and can't imagine what her mother went through.

Bohun said she knows she has to be strong for her own child and be a good mother. She hopes one day to work with kids as a youth counsellor or teacher.

She said she was put in foster care because she started "acting out" and her mother felt unable to cope.

Before the ban was lifted, Bohun told the court that her foster father, Bachman, would grope her breasts.

As an 11-year-old, her breasts were small and she told the court Bachman gave her breast enhancement pills.

He would also caress her buttocks and vaginal area with his fingers but they never had sexual intercourse, she said, although she almost had sex with Bachman one day.

Bachman was giving Bohun a ride in his van and they stopped to discuss sex and her losing her virginity, she told the judge.

"I said if I was going to lose my virginity, it should be him," she testified. "That's how sick and twisted the relationship was."

Bachman responded at the time by saying "If we're going to do this, we should do it now," she told the court.

But she backed out, Bohun testified, estimating she was 13 or 14 at the time of their conversation.

She finally ended their four-year sexual relationship in 2004 when she was 14 when she ran away from the Bachman home, she said.

"I just remember being fed up and not being able to take it anymore," the witness recalled.

She blamed herself for allowing it to happen and started taking drugs to help kill the painful memories, she testified.

Bohun went to police in 2009 and revealed her under-age sexual relationship with Bachman, she said. Bachman was charged in 2010.

Cross-examined by Jack Harris, Bachman's lawyer, Bohun admitted her drug use affected her memory.

The lawyer pointed out that when Bohun testified at Bachman's preliminary hearing, she said she had "flashbacks" of what happened with Bachman.

The defence lawyer suggested she may have imagined or visualized a sexual relationship with Bachman, which she now believes are real memories.

"The drugs affected my memory but the memories are still there," the witness replied. "The drugs made it harder to remember the exact times."

Harris pointed out that the witness previously said she had "flashback" memories of her mother's tragic death, even though she wasn't there when her mother died.

The witness explained that she tried to imagine how her mother died.

Harris suggested the witness imagined and visualized the incidents with Bachman, much like she did for her mother's death.

"All I know is I was sexually abused. I remember that," the witness replied. "I'm not making things up ... It's horrible what he did to me,"

Bachman, 59, has been a Fraser Valley real estate agent for many years. Now white-haired, he came to court wearing a blue pin-striped suit.

He was a founding member of BTO along with his brother Randy Bachman, who had been a founding member of the Guess Who before he left the band in 1970.

The Winnipeg-based BTO released its first album in May 1973. The band's second album, Bachman--Turner Overdrive II, released in December 1973, became a huge hit in the U.S. and Canada, with hit singles Let it Ride and Takin' Care of Business. In 1974, Tim Bachman left BTO, which eventually sold almost 30 million records worldwide. He has rejoined BTO for tours over the years.