'He was scary': Manitoba teacher on trial for allegedly sexually assaulting 8-year-old girl

A former teacher in rural Manitoba is on trial this week for allegedly sexually assaulting a girl several times when she was just eight years old.

On July 14, 2016, Remi Dallaire was charged with sexual interference, sexual assault, invitation to sexual touching and making sexually explicit material available to a child.

At the time, he was a teacher at a school in Lorette, about 25 kilometres southeast of Winnipeg, part of the Division scolaire franco-manitobaine (DSFM).

On Wednesday, DSFM deputy general director Marco Ratté confirmed Dallaire hasn't been employed by the division since the end of the 2015-16 school year, which coincides with when the alleged sexual assaults took place.

RCMP believe Dallaire committed a string of sexual assaults on the girl for weeks, starting near the beginning of June 2016 when the girl, her mother and sister moved into a new apartment across from his in Lorette.

"He would do it a lot to me," the girl, then eight, told RCMP in a video-recorded 2016 interview in which she gave graphic details of sexual assaults, including when she says Dallaire showed her porn and asked her to re-enact things in the video. 

"He was scary."

Dallaire has pleaded not guilty to all four charges and "contested these allegations from day one," his lawyer Matt Gould said in an emailed statement.

"It is important to remember that he is innocent until proven guilty, and that the court has only heard the Crown's evidence to date," Gould said, declining to say whether Dallaire would testify in court.

"Mr. Dallaire maintains his innocence, and is putting his faith in the criminal justice system. My client hopes that the public does not assume guilt, based solely on the seriousness of the allegations."

Mother testifies

The girl, now 10, and her mother were among the witnesses Crown attorney Danielle Simard had testify in court on Monday and Tuesday before Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench Justice Ken Champagne in Winnipeg.

Neither can be identified due to a publication ban.

On Monday, the girl's mother told court she developed a romantic interest in Dallaire not long after she met him.

They moved into the apartment suite across from his on June 10, 2016. At the time, the girls were primarily living with their mother. 

She said about a week after they moved in, Dallaire offered to walk her daughter to and from school and look after her between the end of school and when she got home from work.

The mother said their family quickly grew close to Dallaire and they began seeing each other daily. 

He bought her daughter gifts including toys, body sprays and mentioned he would buy her an iPod, she said.

"He was basically a role model, somewhat of a fatherly figure, they seemed to get along, they had a lot of similarities," she said, describing the relationship between her daughter and Dallaire early on.

Mom interested in relationship with Dallaire

The mother was interested in a relationship with him and said the pair had one sexual encounter in her apartment.

"We were trying to be intimate and he couldn't get it up, and he basically said we should have [my daughter] here," the mother told court. "I was taken off guard, but I wasn't sure, like, if I heard exactly what he meant by that.

"I asked him if he was thinking anything sexual about her and he said, 'No,' and once he denied it, we didn't discuss it any further."

She said Dallaire moved out at the end of June 2016 when his lease was up and stayed with them for about a week before house-sitting for a co-worker across the street. Dallaire continued to spend time with her daughter, who she says spent several nights with him at his apartment and the home across the street.

He offered to look after her on non-school days, the mother said, including when he took her "for an adventure" at a Winnipeg mall to go shopping and watch a movie on July 5, 2016.

The woman read out a text in court she said she received from Dallaire one night in July, when he described feeling suicidal and asked her to send her daughter over. She texted back "it would look really weird" and refused, court heard.

'You touched her'

Then, on July 13 of that year, the woman said her daughter's mood was off.

"She did say she was scared because she would get in trouble and it would be her fault," the mother said. "Basically she stated that Remi hurt her. And I asked how, and she stated that he touched her and did a bunch of things to her."

She confronted Dallaire that night in person but he denied everything.

"'You touched her you son of a bitch.' I honestly wanted to beat the shit out of him. I was yelling, screaming at him," she recalled.

She read out texts she said she received from Dallaire afterward:

"I think we should try to figure out why she would say that or I will have no choice but to call CFS because those child need help and you are scaring them. If you want to make that false complaint against me, that child will be taken out of your custody, because I need to protect my reputation and will have to say everything you told me or your behaviour since I know you to defend myself. This is my last message."

Girl testifies

On Tuesday, the girl appeared in court with a social worker by her side and behind a barrier blocking Dallaire from being able to see her.

Video of the hours-long 2016 interview between an RCMP officer and the girl was played in court where she described how Dallaire bought her a stuffed cat, rings, other items and sexually assaulted her.

"He would always do these things when mom was not there," she said in the video. "He wanted me to keep things secret because he was buying me stuff."

She described rooms in Dallaire's apartment, and the home where he was house-sitting across the street, where she stayed for a few days. There, the girl told RCMP, Dallaire stripped her naked "because he wanted to touch his privates."

Dallaire later told RCMP the girl wet the bed but he never touched her. He also denied asking her to do things she told RCMP he showed her in a pornographic video.

'Slippery stuff'

The girl also told RCMP how Dallaire "used some slippery stuff" from a purple bottle during a sexual assault at the home where he was house-sitting.

On Wednesday, 18-year veteran RCMP Const. Reginald Gordon Olson testified.

"We were live to the fact that we may find this purple lubricant container in the residence," said Olson, who has worked on the internet child exploitation unit since 2010.

He described executing a search warrant at the home on July 14, 2016, when charges were laid against Dallaire.

He said he found an empty purple box of personal lubricant in a black laptop bag belonging to Dallaire.

The trial resumes Thursday.