Student testifies teacher would pull her on his lap in locked classroom

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

A former student alleged Thursday that Rick Watkins (Despatie) would bring her into his classroom alone, lock the door and firmly pull her onto his lap.

With his arms wrapped around her and her feet dangling above the floor, the girl testified she made excuses to leave, but Despatie told her to stop trying to get up.

"After the first time I reported it and nothing happened so I figured ... there was no point."

It happened at least nine more times, she estimated, alleging Despatie would rub her thighs under her school kilt while going over her work, feeling up to the legs of the shorts she wore underneath.

The student said she could feel his arousal.

Asked by the Crown how she knew what part of Despatie was touching her, she told court she could feel his penis "throbbing."

"I felt like I had just been used. You feel disgusting down to your bones." she testified.

"I would scrub my body until it was red and raw. I didn't want to remember any of it."

Student says she told guidance councillor

Despatie, a former St. Matthew High School math teacher, is charged with 14 child sex offences related to four students, all of whom were under the age of 16 when the alleged incidents occurred.

A publication ban bars CBC from reporting information that could identify any of the alleged victims.

The former students have testified Despatie touched them in class, including one girl who alleged he put his hand under her school uniform, touching her underwear, and another who alleged he massaged her shoulders, causing her shirt to buttons to come undone.

The fourth and final complainant testified Thursday.

After the first time she was allegedly pulled into Despatie's lap, she told court she reported what happened in-person to her guidance councillor, hoping to switch classes.

The student testified the guidance councillor responded by telling her to have her mother call in.

When that happened, her mother was told filing a report would create tension between her and the teacher, but the school would keep an eye out for issues, according to the young woman.

As far as she knows, the student said, a report wasn't created, adding it's her understanding the school wouldn't file anything unless other staff members saw something happening.

"I was so mad. They wanted proof," she said. "They were calling me a liar. It stuck with me."

'It was not tickling'

The student alleged Despatie would also wrap his right arm around her neck, squeeze so it was tough to talk, sometimes using his other hand to touch her.

"He would call it tickling. It was not tickling," she told court.

"He would try and grab at my chest, my lower back, my waist, my thighs, whatever was within arm's reach."

The complainant alleged it would happen after she showed up early and was waiting for the school day to start in another teacher's classroom.

The other teacher was present, but did nothing, she added.

The first time it happened, the student recalled telling Despatie to stop, but he would play it off as a joke, she said.

"You're told to kick, scream, bash, but in the moment you don't think of doing it. You just freeze," she testified.

"Toward the end I learned that if I fought it would last longer, so stay still and don't do anything because it will pass."

During cross-examination Dean Embry, Despatie's defence lawyer, asked why the student didn't talk to the other teacher about what was happening, considering she would have seen a student being choked and touched.

The student said she believed the other teacher was in a relationship with Despatie and, given what she'd allegedly witnessed and not addressed, she didn't trust the staff member to report it.

Cross-examination will continue

The complainant also testified that if a button was undone on her shirt the teacher would look down it and say he could see her breasts and that if her bra strap was showing he would pull it back and snap it.

She's the second student to mention bra straps being snapped. A separate complainant who testified Tuesday alleged Despatie would massage her shoulders and neck under her shirt and also pulled back her bra strap, releasing it with a snap.

The student's cross-examination will continue at the next court appearance, which is scheduled for Nov. 21.