Youth sexual-assault trial opens in Rosetown court
By Your Southwest Media Group
Five prosecution witnesses testified during the first part of a youth’s sexual-assault trial during the provincial court session at the Elks Hall on April 9.
An RCMP officer who interviewed the alleged victim, the alleged victim and three young people who attended a mid-November 2025 function in a west-central Saskatchewan community testified. Law prohibits public disclosure of the identity of the accused, and a court order bans identifying the alleged victim.
The trial continues in May with defence testimony.
A young woman said in an interview recorded on video that during a game similar to hide-and-seek, the accused had landed with his face between her buttocks and kept it there as she tried to “scoot away.”
During the next “round” of the game, he followed her behind a flipped-over table, “grabs my chest” and pushed her, then did something similar during one of the two rounds that followed.
The boy touched her breasts twice, even though she told him not to, the victim said in the video, then “kept staring at me the rest of the night” through a snack break and a discussion.
Some others who’d been caught and were “out” laughed when they saw him touching her, she said. However, she and the others didn’t say anything to adult event supervisors.
A witness who’d seen the first incident and had been told he’d touched the girl’s breast testified that she told her mother about the incidents on their drive home and later told her father.
The oldest witness said she’d seen the boy as he “dove into” the victim’s “rear end and stay there” from about three feet away. She later saw him touch the girl’s “chest and moved her out of the way,” she said under cross-examination.
She “thought it was creepy and didn’t know what to do about it,” but said the victim talked with her parents about it during a phone call, then “with my dad.”
A boy who said he was a friend of the accused testified he’d seen the boy with his face “pretty close to her butt” and, under cross-examination, said, “I think he could have moved away.”
Judge Miguel Martinez also gave Trevor Hillman, 39, of Humboldt, a six-month conditional sentence followed by 12 months of probation. Hillman pleaded guilty through a lawyer to possessing stolen property worth less than $5,000 and fraudulently obtaining tools worth about $1,300 from a Kindersley store. The accused must repay the money to the store and have no contact with four people involved with a 1996 Chevrolet pickup that had been stolen in Alberta and that police found Hillman occupying at the Rosetown campground last Oct. 10. He must also abstain from alcohol and non-prescription drugs, abide by a curfew and not use or possess weapons, among other conditions.
Judge Martinez fined Ashok G. Pillai, 42, of Medicine Hat, $350 when the person didn’t show up for a scheduled trial. Police charged Pillai with not slowing from 90 km/h to 60 km/h while passing an emergency vehicle with its lights flashing near Rosetown on Feb. 19. Four people got fines as the registered owners for speeding after they pleaded guilty through a lawyer.
Sydney Weatherall, 28, of Saskatoon, must pay $300 for going 135 km/h.
Habib Qamberi, 33, of Edmonton, got fined $210 for going 130 km/h.
Krunalkumarm Patel, 29, of Scarborough, Ont., must pay $204 for going 127 km/h near Tessier on Oct. 25.
Daniel Jennings, 48, of Zealandia, got fined $202 for going 126 km/h on Sept. 5 near Tessier.