WARNING: This story contains graphic content, which could upset some readers.
A man convicted of a sex assault in a Burnaby washroom more than a decade ago has lost his appeal.
The B.C. Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by Kenneth Paul Burgar for his conviction in a sexual assault back in 1999.
Burgar was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman in the Central Park women’s public washroom on April 16 of that year. According to the facts of the case, the victim was using the washroom and sitting on the toilet when she saw a man masturbating below her stall door. The man then barged into her stall and pushed his body against her while masturbating. He ejaculated on her and fled.
At the time of the attack, DNA recovered from the victim’s clothing was entered into a police database, but turned up nothing and was left as unknown. But 13 years later, the case was reopened after the data bank matched the unknown profile to Burgar.
At the time of the charge in 2012, Burgar was already in prison. He was convicted of the crime in 2013.
During his trial, Burgar denied sexually assaulting the woman. He did acknowledge that he had once tried to expose himself to a woman in the same washroom but ended up masturbating in front of her stall and wiping his semen on the door. He suggested the complainant could have been involved in a separate incident in the washroom and somehow came in contact with his semen.
But the trial judge didn’t believe Burgar and described his explanation of how his semen may have gotten on the washroom stall as unbelievable. It’s unclear what sentence Burgar received for the assaults as it wasn’t noted in court documents.
Burgar attempted to appeal the case on several grounds, including a number of errors by the trial judge and the victim’s credibility. At one point he argued the judge erred by refusing his request for her to “take a stroll around the park,” which he made during post-trial submissions.
However, in all his arguments, the Court of Appeal found no grounds for an appeal.
Burgar, who is in his 60s, has a long history of committing indecent acts in public, including a conviction in a 2005 crime in Surrey.
