HEATHER BOA Bullet News GODERICH – Fred Tyndall, 65, was acquitted on eight sex-related charges today.
Superior court Justice Peter Hockin found the former resident of Elimville, in the south end of Huron County, not guilty of charges related to sexual assaults on a young boy that were alleged to have begun in 1983 and continued over the next decade. The court has banned publication of any information that leads to the identity of the complainant.
The judge said the case hinged on credibility, but since the complainant and a third person were not evasive and all were intelligent, he could not rely on their demeanor while testifying to determine where the truth lay. Instead, he had to rely on whether their evidence measured up to a common sense standard. He quoted from a civil decision from the B.C. courts in which the judge said the real truth of the story has to be whether it’s in harmony with what a practical and informed person would recognize as reasonable.
“I find myself unable to accept as true the accused’s denial of misconduct,” he said, but evidence from a third party left him with reasonable doubt. He said the evidence from the complainant, now 38, about events that occurred shortly after he met Tyndall could not stand with the third party’s evidence.
He also said he “read and re-read” a four-page letter written by the complainant to Tyndall after he had graduated from university and was launching his career, in which he said, in part, “If you are proud of my response to the world, consider it a measure of your own selves.”
The judge said it was the “tenor of a young man reporting on his very commendable progress.”
Immediately after Hockin announced his verdict, Tyndall left the defence table, grabbed his coat from the gallery and left the courtroom with his wife.
The complainant and his wife remained until court was adjourned a few minutes later.
