B.C. RCMP officer who ‘groomed’ teen girl must pay $825K in damages for sexual battery, court rules

A statue of Themis, Goddess of Justice, in the B.C. Supreme Court building in downtown Vancouver on June 26, 2024 (Zak Vescera / Investigative Journalism Foundation and CTV News)

A B.C. RCMP officer who “groomed and manipulated” a teenage girl into an exploitative sexual relationship decades ago has been ordered to pay more than $825,000 in damages, according to a recent court decision.

William Pound was found liable for sexual battery after a civil trial in Vancouver Supreme Court earlier this year and the judge’s decision on damages was posted online Friday. Pound, the decision noted, has never been criminally charged.

CTV News is not naming the woman who filed the notice of civil claim.

“(The woman) submits that, from the time she was 15 years old, Mr. Pound engaged in a pattern of increasingly intrusive grooming behaviours which led up to sexual intercourse shortly after (her) 16th birthday. She has testified that the sexual relationship continued until she was in her early 20s. (She) is now in her early 60s,” Justice Amy D. Francis wrote, summarizing the claim.

“She submits that the psychological pain she suffered as a result of her relationship with Mr. Pound led to crippling alcohol addiction, social anxiety, and, for approximately 30 years, an inability to live any kind of productive life.”

Court hears conflicting accounts of relationship

The court heard two “starkly different accounts” about the relationship between Pound and the woman who filed the civil suit, according to the judgment.

She told the court she met him when she was 15, soon after her family moved into the Vancouver Island neighbourhood where he lived with his wife and children.

“She was sunbathing on the front lawn of her house, and Mr. Pound drove up in his police car. He was wearing his police uniform. He introduced himself to (the plaintiff), and to her mother. He told her that he lived close by. (She) found him to be very nice and charming,” Justice Amy D. Francis wrote in the decision, summarizing the woman’s account of the first meeting between the two.

During subsequent encounters in the neighbourhood, the woman told the court Pound began paying her compliments, saying “I think you are pretty” and “I have been thinking about you.”

The relationship became “more intimate” as time passed, and escalated to sexual intercourse.

“(The woman) testified that almost all the sexual encounters she had with Mr. Pound took place in his bedroom, on Sunday mornings, while Mrs. Pound and the two children were at church,” the judge wrote.

“Mr. Pound spoke to (her) about adult matters. He discussed his work with her, describing bad car accidents and referring to burn victims as ‘crispy critters.’ Mr. Pound also told (her) that he was unhappy with his wife. (The woman) interpreted this to mean that there was a romantic future for her and Mr. Pound and this made her very happy. At 16, she believed herself to be in love with Mr. Pound and she wanted them to have a future together.”

Pound, for his part, told the court he had sex with the woman when she was 20 years old, and that they had sex on a total of three occasions.

“Mr. Pound’s version of events with respect to his sexual relationship with (the woman) was brief and lacking in any detail. In part, this is because he claims he barely knew (her),” the decision said.

“He described her as a neighbour, not a friend and not a romantic partner. He testified that, before they had sex in 1984, he had only spoken to (the woman) a few times and didn’t know anything about her.”

Ultimately, the judge found the woman’s testimony more credible and reliable than Pound’s –rejecting his account of the first time they had sexual intercourse as “utterly improbable” and describing him as a “challenging witness” overall.

“Mr. Pound referred a number of times to this lawsuit as ‘extortion’ and suggested that (she) after losing so many years to alcoholism, needed a way to find money and the “Me Too” movement was the ‘opportunity,’” the decision said.

Consent and the law

After deciding that she preferred the woman’s evidence, Francis next turned to the applicable law – focusing on the issue of consent.

The woman testified that she consented to the relationship and the sexual acts at the time they occurred, starting when she was 15 with kissing and oral sex.

“The key liability question in this case is therefore whether (her) consent was legally effective in light of the circumstances of the relationship between Mr. Pound and (her),” the judge explained.

At the time, there were Criminal Code provisions in place prohibiting “seduction,” according to the decision, which reproduces the definition of one of the offences.

“Every male person who, being 18 years of age or more, seduces a female person of previously chaste character who is 16 years or more but less than 18 years of age is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for two years,” the Code said at the time, according to the judgment.

The woman’s claim argued that given this, the woman would not have been able to legally consent and therefore Pound’s conduct would have “given rise to criminal liability.”

Another argument the woman put forward was that her consent was rendered “legally ineffective” because of the nature of the relationship, specifically that Pound was in a position of power over the woman when she was a teen and the relationship was exploitative.

Pound argued he did not occupy a position of power, trust or authority in the teen’s life because “was not a parent, stepparent, teacher, doctor, or priest who could wield power over her day-to-day life,” the decision said.

The judge rejected this argument, providing a number of reasons why she determined Pound and the woman were in a “power-dependency” relationship.

“(The woman) was a shy teenager who was bullied at school. She did not have any experience with boys. Mr. Pound pursued her from the outset,” the decision said.

“Mr. Pound was a uniformed RCMP officer and an adult neighbour. Due to his age and social stature, he was someone (the woman) would have looked up to and respected.”

He also ingratiated himself with the woman’s family, and hired the teenaged girl to babysit his children, the decision said.

The judge also said Pound controlled “every aspect of the relationship,” including when and where sexual activity would occur, further cementing himself in a position of power.

Given all of this, the judge found the relationship was one in which the woman did not have the capacity to legally consent to the sexual activity.

“It is eminently clear that Mr. Pound exploited (the woman’s) age, immaturity, and lack of sophistication for his own sexual gratification,” the judge wrote.

Impact and damages

The woman has been sober since 2013, has since obtained an advanced degree, is working as a counsellor and living an overall “happy and fulfilling life,” the decision said.

However, decades of her adult life were consumed by a “tragic battle with alcohol-use disorder,” according to the decision. The impact of her alcoholism was wide-ranging. She was hospitalized and jailed, lost jobs and housing, struggled with suicidal ideation and was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility.

“During the more severe periods of alcohol addiction, it is fair to describe her life as a living nightmare,” Francis wrote.

The woman’s alcohol misuse, she told the court, started when she was a teenager and was inextricably linked to her relationship with Pound.

Pound argued the woman’s alcohol use disorder was not “causally connected” to the relationship or the sexual battery.

The judge disagreed.

“While it is possible that (she) would have developed alcoholism in any event, on a balance of probabilities I think it is more likely than not that, but for sexual exploitation by Mr. Pound, (the woman) would not have developed alcohol use disorder.”

As compensation for her pain and suffering, the judge awarded $200,000 in damages, in part because the woman “lost almost everything as a result of her alcohol use disorder.”

The decision also described the impact on the woman “separate and in addition to” her alcoholism.

“Mr. Pound groomed and manipulated her for his own sexual gratification. Her confidence and her very sense of self were deeply impacted by the harms she suffered,” Francis wrote.

“The defendant has consistently demonstrated a callous lack of regard for (the woman) and her suffering. Not only does he deny responsibility for the damage he inflicted, but in the course of his testimony he made gratuitous irrelevant statements, the only purpose of which could be to embarrass and humiliate (the woman).”

Pound’s conduct was also cited as a reason for awarding $50,000 in punitive damages – which the decision explained are “the exception and not the rule” and only meted out when a judge determines they are necessary to further punish “outrageous” wrongdoing.

“His conduct was wrong by contemporary standards, and by the standards of the time,” Francis wrote.

“Notwithstanding his high degree of culpability, Mr. Pound expressed no acknowledgment nor remorse on the witness stand…To this date, Mr. Pound is willfully blind, and seemingly indifferent, to the harms caused by his actions. He appears to view himself, rather than (her), as the victim.”

The bulk of damages awarded, $567,000, was compensation for loss of past earning capacity, bringing the total award to $826,000.