Sexual assault trial begins for former McMaster professor

Warning: This story contains sensitive subject matter, including details of sexual assault and self-harm.

It was after the second alleged assault that she began cutting.

I kept telling myself what had happened to me hadn't happened to me, or telling myself that it wasn't real," she said. It was a way that I found I was able to remind myself that I was alive."

Testifying in court, a McMaster University student described being attacked by her former professor, Scott Watter, then, in her eyes, a friend and confidant.

Watter, 48, is charged with sexual assault and sexual assault causing bodily harm. He has pleaded not guilty at the trial that began Tuesday in front of Justice Amanda Camara.

The complainant is a PhD student in the university's Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour (PNB). The newspaper cannot identify her due to a publication ban.

One minute we were on the couch and the next minute we were in the bedroom," she said.

Watter had walked her home after a games night" at his and his wife's home less than two kilometres away.

First, he took her clothes off and used his fingers to penetrate her anus, she testified. Then, she said he held her down and beat her.

I remember he had a cupped hand ... and he hit me several times very, very hard on my ass and upper legs and squeezed very hard afterward," she testified. It hurt more than anything I've ever experienced."

The victim said she had purple bruises the size of a man's hand and red, raised welts" on her legs and buttocks.

How would you describe your level of sobriety while this is happening to you?" asked assistant Crown attorney Nancy Flynn.

I was not sober. I was in and out of consciousness," the student replied.

The alleged assault is one of several that she says occurred during the spring and summer of 2017 - the first an unwanted kiss on the piano bench in Watter's basement some time in early March or late April, the victim testified.

She had known Watter for several years, but had only recently become close. The victim and her then-partner, also a student, were friends with Watter and his wife, and were regularly invited over for dinner and to play board games.

The couple had a warm, familial-type relationship" with many students, including those outside their department, and would often host dinners, including for Thanksgiving, at their house.

Alcohol was almost always involved, she testified.

During that time, Watter had also become a confidant. The stresses of a demanding program, coupled with her grandfather's death, had caused her mental health to deteriorate. Rather than seek outside help, she began to get support from Watter, a trained professional.

One night in early March or late April, the victim testified she had gone downstairs for some alone time - she was grieving her grandfather's recent death - when Watter came down to comfort her, she said. They talked, and she said he put his arm around her shoulders.

He gave me his glass of wine to drink and I drank it, and the next thing I knew we were kissing," she said.

When she confronted him about the kiss two days later, she said he told her to keep it a secret. During the same conversation, she said he also shared with her that he had a sexual relationship with another grad student.

In another basement incident, she testified that he put a pillow over her face for 20 to 30 seconds and pushed her up against a pillar and choked her. She saw an erection in his pants," she said.

Later in the summer, she said she and Watter were speaking in his car when he reached inside her bra and twisted her nipples until they were oozing."

I screamed, and he told me I was a good girl,'" she said.

The self-harm began as nicks" on her upper thighs, but they got progressively deeper," she said.

She cut shapes - a dragonfly, an eye crying - into her skin. Watter saw the dragonfly.

He said he thought it was pretty, and that he liked it," she said.

Her partner would call Watter to help dress the wounds.

On one occasion, she was on the floor in the bathroom in a pool of my own blood," she testified.

He patched me up and at some point during that he was kissing me and touching me as well," she said. She testified he touched her vagina, underneath her underwear.

The Crown asked the victim repeatedly whether she had wanted any of the touching she had experienced. Each time, she responded no." The Crown also asked repeatedly whether Watter had asked her if she was OK with it. Again, the answer was always no."

In the middle of the summer in 2017, the student hatched a plan to take her own life. She described feeling like a shell" of herself and an inconvenience to everyone." Watter had become distant, she said.

She took scalpels and whisky, and went to the location where she planned to kill herself. She was in a state of distress" and made a last-ditch" effort to contact Watter.

I reached out to him and told him I was doing very bad and needed help," she said. He replied that he was too busy to come.

That was when something changed" and she started to think differently about Watter's motives, she said.

Someone who purports to be a caring individual, someone who had been a mentor in your life, someone who truly cared about you would not leave you in a state of distress," she said.

The trial resumes tomorrow.

Kate McCullough is an education reporter at The Spectator. kmccullough@thespec.com