Student questioned about drinking in cross-examination at McMaster professor’s sexual assault trial

As defence counsel began cross-examination, she looked straight ahead.

I'm ready for it," she said, speaking from the witness stand Wednesday.

The McMaster University student has alleged she was assaulted repeatedly by her former professor, Scott Watter.

Watter, 48, is charged with sexual assault and sexual assault causing bodily harm. He has pleaded not guilty.

The judge-only trial began Tuesday before 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.

Defence lawyer Jeffrey Manishen, who is representing Watter, pressed her on her drinking habits, which she says increased with her relationship with her then-partner and friendship with Watter and his wife, in the lead-up to the alleged assaults in the spring and summer of 2017.

She described Watter's home, where she and her partner often attended dinners and games nights," as an environment where drinking was encouraged or normalized."

It felt strange or not right when you weren't," she said.

But, of course, you, as an adult and grad student, have the right to make decisions about how much you do and don't want to drink," Manishen suggested.

She agreed.

She previously testified Watter kissed her on the piano bench in his basement in late March or early April, the first of several alleged assaults.

She was upset over her grandfather's death, and said Watter came to comfort her. She said he offered her a glass of wine, saying it would make her feel better" - she was already intoxicated and vulnerable.

Manishen suggested she wasn't forced, but chose" to drink the wine.

I took the glass of wine, it wasn't poured down my throat," she responded.

Manishen asked whether her accounts of the events in interviews with police and lawyer Katharine Montpetit of Rubin Thomlinson LLP were accurate to the best of her memory.

She said they were, but that it's common knowledge memories of traumatic events are fuzzy."

She reported the incident on Feb. 12, 2020, and was interviewed by police on Feb. 29, 2020. As part of the investigation, she was interviewed twice in October 2020 and once in December 2020 by Montpetit.

Manishen asks about another interview, one with then-Hamilton Spectator reporter Katrina Clarke.

The complainant said she contacted The Spectator after she had left the McMaster investigation.

Manishen asked if she went to The Spectator because of her displeasure" with the way the university was handling the investigation.

That was part of it," she said, adding that she had concerns abut the motivations behind the university's angling and choice of counsel."

The reason I went to The Spectator was to have an opportunity to not only tell my story in my own words ... but to also stand up for other people who may not have a voice," she said.

That was also the primary reason she reported the alleged assaults when she did, she testified earlier in the day.

She had always planned" to come forward - but after she had finished her PhD and left the university, she told assistant Crown attorney Nancy Flynn.

But when she learned about another student whose story was very similar," she decided to report it then.

I couldn't hold my silence any longer," she said. It was one thing if it happened to me, I could somehow stomach or handle that for a while. But it was something else if it happened to someone else."

The trial continues on Friday.

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