Snowbirds pilot Maj. Steven Hurlbut has been found not guilty of sexual assault.
Ontario Court Justice Jodie-Lynn Waddilove rendered her decision at the Barrie courthouse, this week.
The decision closed a case that began on June 8, 2023, when it was alleged that Hurlbut forced himself upon a lower-ranking female member of the Snowbirds crew with unwanted touching, kissing and by inserting his tongue in her ear after inviting her back to his room at the Allure Hotel on Fairview Road.
Hurlbut testified that no sexual activity, forced or consensual, took place.
Both the complainant and Hurlbut had been in town for the Barrie Airshow.
“Given the conflicting accounts,” Waddilove explained while reading out her judgment, “(and) the absence of corroborative evidence and the reliability concerns of the complainant’s testimony, I am not satisfied that the Crown has proven the essential elements of the offence beyond a reasonable doubt.”
In her detailed judgment, Waddilove said though she found the woman to be sincere and that her “evidence was not rejected as untruthful … rather it was found to be insufficiently reliable.”
Waddilove also questioned Hurlbut’s judgment in inviting a subordinate back to his hotel room at night, as well as certain elements of his testimony, but generally credited his evidence as being “candid," even when some of the facts were “unflattering” to him.
Hurlbut, 49, attended the proceedings by video.
The pilot, whose military service includes missions in Iraq and Syria over three decades, showed no discernible reaction during or after the judgment. He quietly logged off immediately after Friday's hour-long ruling.
The complainant’s identity remains protected by a publication ban. She did not appear either in the body of the court or by video.
Beyond the testimony of the complainant and Hurlbut, the trial’s defining feature was its stop-and-start nature. Evidence took longer than expected, but more substantive delays were encountered when a witness had to be recalled. It turned out to be brief after the Crown investigated how he passed along the complainant’s discussions with him to military authorities.
With the trial’s four witnesses spread around Canada, and Waddilove moving to another jurisdiction, the trial stretched out more than 11 months.
It was also taking place in the same courthouse, at the same time and in parallel to that of Cpl. Oleksii Silin, who was found not guilty in June of sexual assault and forcible confinement in relation to an incident that took place in 2018 at CFB Borden, located about 20 minutes west of Barrie.
In that case, Justice Robert Gattrell said he could not conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Silin forced a female soldier, Elvira Jaszberenyi, into a broom closet, where it was alleged he raped her.
Jaszberenyi waived her right to anonymity in that case, in part, she said, to raise awareness of the issue of sexual violence in the military.
Military authorities had declined to bring charges in that case, but Jaszberenyi brought a private prosecution against Silin.
By contrast, the military investigated the allegation against Hurlbut, charging him and then handing over prosecution to the civilian courts.
As the Hurlbut and Silin trials were inching along, an historical case of sexual assault is now alleged to have taken place at Borden. In that case, Kevin Buchanan and Ian Koss were charged with sexual assault earlier this year.
A Superior Court judge was conducting a judicial pre-trial at the same time as Waddilove was reading her judgment in another courtroom on Friday.
Buchanan and Koss are alleged to have assaulted the victim, Sonia Rogers, in 2002 while all three were attending training at the local base.
Buchanan, who is a Barrie native, and Koss, who grew up in and around Kingston, were instructors/officers and Rogers was a cadet at the time. All three have since left the military.
Silin and Hurlbut both continue to serve.
Rogers has also waived her right to having her name published and sought to lift the publication ban that typically accompanies sexual assault prosecutions.
Like the Silin-Jaszberenyi case, military authorities declined to prosecute, but Rogers brought a private action against the two accused.