Peter Nygard wants Winnipeg sex assault charges stayed citing lost evidence

Former Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard is asking for his charges of sexual assault and unlawful confinement to be stayed because police failed to keep records of the complainant's first interaction with officers nearly 30 years ago. Nygard arrives at a courthouse in Toronto on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

WINNIPEG — Former Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard wants charges of sexual assault and unlawful confinement stayed because of police bungling.

His lawyer, Gerri Wiebe, told court Monday that police failed to keep records of the complainant’s first interaction with officers nearly 30 years ago, undercutting Nygard’s right to a fair trial.

“I would say that you ought to find that the loss of these two police files were due to unacceptable negligence,” Wiebe told provincial court Judge Mary Kate Harvie.

“The complainant here can say anything she wants to about what she did or didn’t tell the police ... I have virtually nothing to challenge that with.”

Nygard, 84, appeared in a Winnipeg courtroom via video link for the first day of scheduled hearings this week. He was wearing a ball cap, sunglasses and a dark-coloured parka and only spoke to say when he couldn’t hear the proceedings.

The former designer, who founded a now-defunct global women’s clothing company in Winnipeg, was charged in 2023 after police said a person came forward in 2022 with allegations of sexual assault at a warehouse in Manitoba’s capital in 1993.

The woman, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban, first spoke with police in Winnipeg and British Columbia after family members called in a wellness check after not hearing from the complainant for a few days.

The complainant spoke with officers but declined to press charges at the time, telling police that she was “safe” and “fine,” Wiebe said in her submissions.

Wiebe told court that records of the police interviews and evidence from when the complainant first spoke to police no longer exist because they were destroyed or lost due to the passage of time.

Wiebe argued that without this evidence, she cannot fairly cross-examine the complainant on her original statements, creating “an inherent unfairness to the accused that is impossible to overcome.”

The complainant spoke to officers again in 2020, but she couldn’t remember what specifics she told police aside from not wanting to press charges at that time, said Wiebe.

This is the second time Nygard’s lawyer has tried to get the charges dismissed.

Wiebe previously tried to get the charges stayed by arguing they were a result of political power.

Manitoba prosecutors decided not to lay charges in 2020 after the complainant came forward. Winnipeg police had submitted eight cases for consideration by the Crown around this time.

The province’s former attorney general, Kelvin Goertzen, under the then-Progressive Conservative government forwarded the investigation to Saskatchewan Justice in 2022 for an independent review. Nygard was later arrested in 2023.

Harvie ruled in May that Goertzen didn’t do his due diligence in seeking a second opinion on the Crown’s decision not to lay charges resulting in an abuse of process.

Despite this, Harvie ruled Nygard’s case can proceed in court.

Nygard founded his fashion company in Winnipeg in 1967. He stepped down as chairman after the FBI and police raided his offices in New York in February 2020.

Nygard International later filed for bankruptcy.

He was sentenced last year to 11 years for sex offences in Toronto. He also faces a trial on sex charges in Quebec as well as extradition to the United States on sex trafficking and racketeering charges.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 8, 2025.

Brittany Hobson, The Canadian Press