The owner of a former Bridgewater restaurant has been convicted after sexually grabbing an employee.
In a decision released earlier this month, but handed down in October, 58-year-old Glen Carson was found guilty of sexual assault.
According to the decision, Carson grabbed the bum of a woman working at his Bridgewater restaurant at the time.
When confronted by the woman, Carson replied “What are you going to do, call the Labour Board?”
The employee replied, “It is not the Labour Board you need to worry about, it’s my husband.”
The decision says the employee quit the next day, and reported the assault to the police.
Van der Hoek says his actions “were designed to humiliate a person he perceived as a helpless female employee. The victim proved she was underestimated when she chose to report the offence.”
In her decision, she says Carson “sees himself as the victim of false allegations,” and denied any wrongdoing.
“Mr. Carson does not acknowledge committing the offence and has not availed himself of counselling directly related to obtaining insight into his offending behaviour,” said van der Hoek.
“Not unlike other cases where an offender does not acknowledge commission of an offence, he has not demonstrated good prospects for rehabilitation.”
Carson had also been convicted for a similar offence with another female employee the same day by Judge Paul Scovil.
Van der Hoek stressed the seriousness of the offence and Carson’s abuse of power in her decision.
“That the sexually assaultive behaviour occurred while she was actually working coupled with the minimizing comments made to her afterwards, renders it fairly grave,” said van der Hoek.
“Employees are in a position of weakness as it relates to an employer and the actions of Mr. Carson took advantage of his position of authority.”
At the end of the trial, van der Hoek handed Carson a four month conditional sentence, as well as six months of probation. He will also be on the sex offender registry for life and must refrain from contacting the victim, except through a lawyer.
The sentence was set to run consecutively with the sentence given by Judge Scovil earlier that day.
