David Bobbitt will be back in Penticton court on April 29 to make pleas on charges of aggravated assault, aggravated sexual assault as well as other offences.

(SHANNON QUESNEL / iNFOnews.ca)

PENTICTON — A sexual assault victim continued to give her testimony today during the dangerous offender hearing for David Bobbitt who raped her nearly eight years ago.

The victim appeared in Penticton Supreme Court via closed circuit TV and gave evidence of an incident that took place in 2007. There is no relation between this incident and the 2011 assault of a 22-year-old woman at Bobbitt’s second-hand store in Penticton. Bobbitt pleaded guilty to seven charges including sexual assault, attempted murder and confinement. But her evidence can be considered as part of a series of violent and sexual offences that led to the Dangerous Offender Hearing and could mean an indeterminate jail sentence for Bobbitt.

The 2007 incident took place in Bobbitt’s camper at a Penticton trailer park. The victim said she woke to him pacing and ranting with a “mean, stressed, scary look on his face.”

After several minutes of this odd behaviour, he pinned her down on the bed and forced himself on her, she said. He covered her mouth and choked her to block her screams. The force from his hands left bruises and scratches on her neck and face.

“I was horrified,” she said. “He had me pinned on every level—I could not move.”

She couldn’t breathe because of the force, and he was “smushing” her face so hard her nose bled. And he wouldn’t listen to her begging for him to get off her.

Once he stopped, she quickly dressed and bolted to a nearby cafe to get help, she said. Bobbitt followed her there and began to pace, rant and make threats towards her. 

He left after several minutes, and ran towards the trailer park where he lived. The victim spent the night with a friend who drove her to the hospital in Oliver the next day.

RCMP were at the hospital and took her to the Penticton detachment where she gave a statement, she said.

She received a police escort to gather her belongings from Bobbitt’s residence, but was left homeless, with limited income, traumatized and vulnerable.

Bobbitt was arrested the day after the rape and gave a police statement, however no formal charges were ever made against him. The RCMP nor the victim followed up after her statement. She said she was too traumatized to revisit the incident.

This case is being used as evidence in the dangerous offender hearing for Bobbitt, as well as two other assault cases, including the one from 2011. Justice Peter Rogers will determine if Bobbitt will be labelled as a dangerous offender — a person who has committed a serious personal injury, has a pattern of harming others physically and psychologically and is at risk to reoffend, according to the Canadian Criminal Code.

The victim will continue her testimony this afternoon.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Meaghan Archer at marcher@infotelnews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

News from © iNFOnews, 2014