Supreme Court won’t hear appeal of man convicted of torturing roommate

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The victim was dropped off, near death, at a Regina hospital in April 2010. He was emaciated, battered and bleeding.

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In its November 2016 ruling, the Alberta Appeal Court upheld the convictions and said there was no evidence to suggest that the victim was consenting to sexual contact with Paxton.

The Appeal Court also rejected other arguments from Paxton’s lawyers, who said the trial judge made errors, showed bias and shouldn’t have excluded a defence expert who found the victim’s testimony unreliable. They also questioned the victim’s memory about events that had happened years before.

“It is hard to imagine a situation more compelling than the one found to exist by the trial judge, of regular beatings inflicting serious bodily harm on (the victim), to support his evidence that he feared being beaten by Paxton if he did not comply with his sexual expectations,” wrote the judges.

“Paxton created an atmosphere where (the victim) was required to provide total obedience through physical and psychological control of this vulnerable person.”

During Paxton’s trial in Calgary, court heard that he humiliated, starved, beat and sexually assaulted his roommate over 18 months while they lived together in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The man, who cannot be identified, testified that he suffered a traumatic brain injury from the abuse and can no longer hold a job.

He said he has trouble with his balance, can’t swallow properly and has to drink through a straw. The man lost some of his lip during the prolonged ordeal, had his ribs broken and sustained a ruptured bowel.

“Before the assaults, I was extremely good-looking and very attractive to women and now I am disfigured,” he testified.

The trial heard how the smallest things such as leftovers in the fridge would provoke an attack. The victim testified that he took the abuse because he didn’t want to look like “a sissy” and had dreams of making big money in a moving business he and Paxton had started.

— By Bill Graveland in Calgary. Follow @BillGraveland on Twitter

The Canadian Press