(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)

A Kamloops man has been found guilty of sexual assault after a December trial.

Troy Stanley George Schank, 36, raped a woman as she slept, according to a recently published BC Supreme Court decision.

The pair were at a friend's house for a barbecue in May 2021. She was invited to a co-worker's house that night, but she didn't know many people who were there.

That's where she met Schank.

The pair spent the evening getting to know each other, until she got tired from a night of drinking and smoking cannabis. They turned on a movie and shared a couch as she started to fall asleep, according to the decision.

Schank started touching her and making advances but she told him no at least twice before she fell asleep, Justice Baljinder Kaur Girn found.

She said she thought she fell asleep for about an hour and woke to Schank raping her.

"So I was kind of first, like what’s happening and my head was like just let it happen because maybe I was just too drunk and we did it and I said yes finally," she testified. "And then I clicked in and I finally came to and I said wait a second, I said no and I didn’t have that much to drink and now this is happening."

That's when she got up and fled to the bathroom. She returned to grab her purse and Schank asked what was wrong.

"I just want to go home," she told him before leaving in a taxi around 2 a.m., according to the decision.

Schank and the victim exchanged text messages over the next two days. She accused him of taking advantage of her after she said no, which he called a "misunderstanding."

"I did not want to get to know you. And I do not ever want to see you again," she said in a text message. "You think it's funny, I think it's awful."

Schank testified consent was implied and denied she was sleeping when he raped her, according to the decision.

On May 15, Girn ruled that she did not accept Schank took any "reasonable steps" to ensure the victim at the barbecue consented, nor did she believe his testimony about their sexual activity was truthful.

Girn found Schank guilty of sexual assault, but he's yet to be sentenced.

The circumstances in this case were similar to another where Schank was found not guilty earlier this year. That decision was handed down on Jan. 27. The complainant in that case testified they were both drinking during the night and he took her back to a Kamloops hotel room.

She left after less than an hour, which the judge said was "relatively short" for consensual sex to have happened in the hotel room. However, he was left with "at least a reasonable doubt" that Schank had an "honest but mistaken belief" she consented to sex before leaving the hotel.

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