Father on trial, accused of sexually assaulting toddler daughter
Royal Inland Hospital’s chief of pediatrics gave disturbing evidence this week in B.C. Supreme Court, where a Kamloops father is on trial on allegations he sexually assaulted his three-year-old daughter last year.
Dr. Denise Chapple took the stand in the trial of the 43-year-old, who cannot be named due to a court-ordered publication ban protecting the identity of his daughter.
The father is charged with one count of sexual interference of a person under 16, dating back to last spring.
Chapple told court she twice examined the girl, who was then just shy of her fourth birthday, in April 2011.
The doctor said she found an injury — described as “a hematoma” — inside the girl’s vagina.
That injury, court heard, matched the story the girl’s mother had relayed to Chapple prior to the exams.
The mother told Chapple the girl’s father had sexually assaulted the three-year-old.
Crown prosecutor Will Burrows pressed the doctor further about the injury.
“Would there be pain typically associated with that?” the lawyer asked.
“There would be,” Chapple replied.
Earlier this week, testifying by closed-circuit video from another room at the Kamloops Law Courts, the girl, who is now five years old, said the assault “felt like a knife.”
Burrows asked Chapple if that description would be appropriate given the injuries she saw during her examination of the girl.
“I think it would,” the doctor replied.
The trial, before B.C. Supreme Court Justice Miriam Maisonville, began on Monday, Sept. 17.
It is slated to wrap up on Friday, Sept. 21.
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