Robert Regular wiped away tears and was hugged by supporters in a St. John’s courtroom Thursday afternoon after a judge dismissed all charges against him.
Then he went to the courthouse steps to criticize a case he says should never have made it to trial in the first place.
“It should never have happened, and it happened,” Regular said in a brief statement to reporters.
“Only because of the misbehaviour of the Crown and the police.”
The Conception Bay South lawyer and businessman was facing five charges — four counts of sexual assault and one of sexual interference — involving the same complainant.
She was between 12 and 14 at the time of the first alleged assault, more than two decades ago. There is a publication ban on her identity.
Regular had sought a publication ban on his own name prior to trial.
Lawyer Robert Regular had four charges of sexual assault and one count of sexual interference dismissed in a St. John’s courtroom Thursday. His counsel, Jerome Kennedy, told reporters that justice prevailed.
Defence lawyer Jerome Kennedy referenced that when questioned by reporters about the verdict.
“From Day 1, Mr. Regular has maintained his innocence,” Kennedy said.
“In fact, you remember that one of the reasons we sought a publication ban was on the basis that an innocent man’s name was going to be dragged through the mud and his reputation ruined. Today is a vindication of that position.”
Kennedy also said the case should never have gotten to this stage.
“If the Crown and the police had done their jobs properly, we wouldn’t be here,” he said.
The Crown says it’s too early to talk about what may happen next. There is a 30-day window to launch an appeal.
“As you heard, it was a very lengthy decision,” Crown prosecutor Deidre Badcock told reporters. “So we’re going to take some time to review it, and determine our next steps.”
In his decision, which took nearly two hours to read, Justice Vikas Khaladkar walked through a series of inconsistencies he found in the testimony of the complainant.
“The evidence of the complainant overall is troubling,” Khaladkar said in his ruling.
Some of the inaccuracies are “serious,” the judge noted, and “create significant doubt” about her ability to remember events.
“I am concerned about the lack of cohesion in the complainant’s testimony,” Khaladkar said.
He highlighted her comments in a separate matter, brought up by defence lawyers at trial, where the complainant claimed she had a sexual relationship with a police officer.
Newfoundland and Labrador’s Serious Incident Response Team, the province’s independent police watchdog, investigated but declined to lay charges, citing “major inconsistencies.”
Among those noted by Khaladkar was a description of an interaction the complainant described with the police officer in question, during a time frame before he had actually joined the force.
The woman, now in her mid-30s, testified Regular assaulted her in a car outside his law office in the first alleged incident more than 20 years ago.
Her mother was a client of Regular’s, who at the time was working to return her to her mother’s care from provincial child services.
The complainant accused Regular of a second assault in his law office when she was in her late teens.
She was pregnant with a much older man’s child and had been approached by child welfare officials with a warrant to take her child into custody.
The complainant testified she had retained Regular as a lawyer in relation to that matter.
Two more charges of sexual assault were subsequently filed involving the same woman, for incidents in 2012 and 2013 also alleged to have taken place in Regular’s office.
Regular’s defence team highlighted inconsistencies in her testimony.
The businessman and lawyer took the stand to flatly reject all of the accusations.
Regular testified that allegations he had groped the complainant when she was about 12 “absolutely did not happen.”
He also said the subsequent alleged sexual encounters never took place.
Under cross-examination, Regular took aim at the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary investigation, saying he didn’t expect to get charged “in any way, shape or form.”
If the investigator had finished her investigation, he said, “we wouldn’t be here today.”
In closing submissions, defence lawyer Rosellen Sullivan called the Crown’s case “fraught with inconsistencies, improbabilities, impossibilities and downright fabrications.”
Co-counsel Jerome Kennedy stressed the importance of the presumption of innocence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt, saying the Crown had not met that standard.
Crown prosecutor Deidre Badcock downplayed the importance the defence had placed on inconsistencies in the complainant’s testimony, contending the case had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
The proceedings against Regular made national news before the trial even began.
After the first charges were laid in mid-2021, Regular launched a lengthy legal battle to have his name shielded from publication.
He was initially granted an interim publication ban at Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court.
CBC News and CTV News intervened, arguing that would interfere with the open-court principle and freedom of the press.
In March 2022, Justice James Adams issued a decision that sided with the two media organizations.
The judge ruled granting the ban would “constitute a sea change in the criminal law” and run counter to the open-court principle.
Regular then sought leave to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.
In August 2022, the country’s top court declined to hear the matter, clearing the way for his name to be publicly revealed.
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