Jury acquits defendant of all counts, but his lawyer, Aitan M. Lerner, says he may never return to teaching

A teacher found not guilty of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old student is so traumatized by the false allegations that he may never set foot in a classroom again, said his defence lawyer yesterday.

A jury acquitted veteran francophone elementary school teacher Paul Senecal, 49, on Monday night of all eight counts with which he had been charged.

He and his family have been "scarred for life" by the case, said his lawyer Aitan Lerner.

After a 23-year career as a dedicated teacher, Senecal was suspended from his teaching job without pay, court was told.

The jury was shown a 2005 videotaped statement by the girl, then 13, claiming Senecal sexually assaulted her on four occasions in May and June of 2005.

But in a previous statement, also shown in court, the student only mentioned one incident.

The father of five was charged with four counts of sex assault and four of sexual interference involving the Grade 7 student at the francophone school near Kipling Ave. and Dixon Rd.

Crown prosecutor Robert Kenny said yesterday the case was one person's word against the other. The jury paid close attention to the evidence, he said.

The complainant, who is now 15 and cannot be named, admitted she once had a crush on Senecal and left a message on his phone saying she loved him.

Senecal's wife phoned the student to tell her the message was not appropriate, court was told.

The embarrassed girl dreaded facing the teacher again the following fall, the defence argued.

So she decided to lodge a sexual complaint to make sure he would have to leave the school, Lerner suggested.

She told police that in June 2005 Senecal touched her breasts over her bra after he followed her into a classroom during a Saturday music practice.

But after seeing an Oprah TV show detailing a sexual assault of a young person by a trusted adult, she adopted that story line to expand the number of alleged incidents.

She related these additional incidents in a second statement to police in September 2005, Lerner said.

An emotional Senecal adamantly denied her charges. "None of this happened," he testified.

A man who killed his wife in front of his daughter says he can't remember hitting her on the head 12 times after she told him she wanted out of the marriage.

"My daughter was shaking me and said, `Daddy, daddy," a sobbing Rafat Chowdhury told his murder trial today.

"I presumed something big had happened ... I saw I had a hammer in my hand and my wife was in the bed in a blooded condition," Chowdhury said.

Chowdhury, 48, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder but guilty to manslaughter in the July 17, 2005, beating death of his wife, Hafiza, 41, in their east Toronto home.

The Crown has rejected his guilty plea and the trial continues.

Chowdhury said he and his wife had a good marriage for 17 years until June 2005, when she visited their native Bangladesh on short notice, taking the youngest of their two daughters with her.

The next day a letter came for her to their home in the Warden Ave. And Danforth Rd. Area.

He opened the letter, which he discovered was from his wife's old sweetheart in Bangladesh, explaining that despite her wishes they could not be together.

"I was extremely surprised. I was angry," he told his lawyer, Aitan Lerner.

When she returned the next month, she made it plain she no longer wished to be with him, he said.

On the night of her death, as they lay on their bed, their youngest daughter, 11, between them, she asked him to sponsor her sweetheart, who was married with children, to come to Canada, he said.

When he refused her suggestion, his wife said she wanted to sell the house and return to Bangladesh, Chowdhury said.

She told him that she had never wanted her oldest daughter, then 15, to be born and had tried twice, unsuccessfully, to terminate the pregnancy, Chowdhury said, sobbing.

Under cross-examination by Crown prosecutor Greg Scott, Chowdhury denied a suggestion that he killed his wife because she was going to leave him.

"Why did you hit your wife a dozen or more times on her head with a hammer ... Why did you do it sir," Scott asked.

"I have no idea," Chowdhury replied.

The trial continues tomorrow.

A jury has returned a manslaughter verdict for an East Toronto man who beat his wife on the head 12 times with a hammer in front of their daughter when the woman threatened to leave him for another man.

Rafat Chowdhury, 48, had pleaded guilty to manslaughter last month but Crown prosecutors James Vlasis and Greg Scott rejected the plea and elected to try him on a charge of second-degree murder.

After a two-week trial during which Chowdhury and his two young daughters, who witnessed the attack, took the stand, the jury last night found him not guilty of murder.

Chowdhury testified that he did not remember hitting his wife repeatedly with the hammer on the night of July 17, 2005, as she lay on the matrimonial bed, their 9-year-old daughter lying by her side.

Defence lawyers Aitan Lerner and Emma Rhodes argued that he snapped after being provoked beyond endurance as his wife of 17 years announced that she wanted to leave him for another man and that she showed extraordinary callousness toward him.

A weeping Chowdhury testified that he and his wife, Hafiza, 41, had a good marriage until June 2005, when she returned to their native Bangladesh on short notice, taking the 9-year-old daughter with her.

A day after Hafiza left, a letter addressed to her arrived at the family home near Warden Ave. and Danforth Rd., in east Toronto. Chowdhury opened it and discovered it was from his wife's old sweetheart in Bangladesh, now married with children. The man wrote to say that despite her wishes, they could never be together.

When Hafiza returned from Bangladesh, she told her husband she no longer wanted to be with him and the couple quarrelled frequently and loudly.

On the Sunday of her death as they lay in bed, Hafiza asked her husband to sponsor her lover so they could live in the house, Chowdhury testified. She and the man would live upstairs while Chowdhury could stay in the basement and their two daughters could go into foster care, a sobbing Chowdhury told Superior Court.

When she told him that she had tried twice, when pregnant with their eldest girl, to terminate the pregnancy, that was the final provocation that set him, court heard.

But the prosecutors argued that Chowdhury formed the intent to kill his wife as evidenced, for instance, by going downstairs to find the hammer.

The eldest daughter, 15, who was downstairs watching TV, heard screams and rushed upstairs to see him with the hammer in his hand.

"I'm like, `Dad, calm down, calm down. Why are you doing this to mom?'" said the girl in a video statement.

"Like I'm pulling my dad back," she told police. "Then I saw my mom's blood come out and I started crying."

He will return for sentencing before Justice John McMahon on Dec. 21.

Prosecutors allege man hit wife on head with hammer 12 times because she wanted to leave him for another

Peter Small
Courts Bureau

A Toronto businessman smashed his wife's head 12 times with a hammer in front of their 9-year-old daughter after the woman said she wanted to leave him for another man, a prosecutor says.

Rafat Chowdhury's youngest daughter, now 11, will testify that as she and her mother, Hafiza, lay on a bed, he approached with a hammer and began his fatal attack, Crown prosecutor Greg Scott told a jury yesterday.

The couple's eldest daughter, now 18, will testify that she was watching television on the main floor of their east Toronto home when she heard her younger sister screaming, Scott said.

She rushed upstairs and found her father, hammer in hand, standing over her bleeding mother, Scott said, outlining the evidence he and co-counsel James Vlasis expect to present.

"She pushed her father and tried to grab the hammer from him," Scott told the Superior Court jury.

She asked him why he had done it, and he said it was because her mother wanted to place both the girls, whose names cannot be published, in foster care, Scott said.

Rafat Chowdhury, 48, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

The couple came from Bangladesh in 1994 and moved into a house on Scotia Ave., in the Warden Ave. and Danforth Rd. area.

In June 2005 Hafiza Chowdhury travelled to Bangladesh to visit her ailing sister, Scott said.

While she was away a letter arrived at their Toronto home from her old sweetheart, the jury heard. Rafat Chowdhury opened the letter. The writer "indicated that in the past he had promised to marry her (Hafiza) and despite the fact that she wanted to go back to him there was no way they could be together," Scott said.

Both daughters will testify that when their mother returned the couple argued angrily and frequently, Scott said.

On July 17, 2005 – the night of the attack – Rafat Chowdhury told his eldest daughter, then 15, that her mother had asked for a divorce and wanted to sell their business and house and return to Bangladesh.

A forensic pathologist will testify that Hafiza Chowdhury died of blunt-force head injuries. She was hit 18 times and 12 of the blows were to the head, causing multiple skull fractures and rupturing an eyeball.

Police Const. Baheer Sarvanandan testified that when he arrived at the home that night Rafat Chowdhury appeared calm and in charge.

"He willingly approached you and told you that he struck his wife and she was in his room," asked defence lawyer Aitan Lerner.

"Not immediately," Sarvanandan replied.

"He said, `I hit my wife and she's upstairs.'"

The trial continues today.

Peter Small
Courts Bureau

The daughter of a jealous husband who attacked his wife with a hammer had to pull her the enraged man away from her bleeding mother, a court has heard.

"I'm like, `Dad, calm down, calm down. Why are you doing this to mum?'," the girl said.

"Like I'm pulling my dad back," she recalled in a video statement to police. "Then I saw my mom's blood come out and I started crying."

Rafat Chowdhury, 48, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the July 17, 2005 beating death of his wife Hafiza, 41.

The girl's video statement, taken just hours after the businessman allegedly delivered 18 hammer blows to his wife's body, 12 of them to her head, was shown to a Superior Court jury Thursday.

The daughter, who cannot by judge's order be named, is now 18 and sat in the witness box and watched the tape that was made when she was just 15.

"He's like, `Oh mom wants to leave you, leave you, leave you and your sister to foster parents,'." the girl said in the interview.

She told a police officer that she pulled and pushed her dad away from her mother, who was lying bleeding on the bed. "I'm like, 'Dad go back.'."

The girl said that her parents had been arguing for days since her mother announced that she wanted to return to their native Bangladesh to be with an old sweetheart.

That evening the teenager was in their home's ground floor TV room watching a movie while her parents and little sister were upstairs.

She said she saw her father come down and look for the hammer. He closed the door to the TV room, she said in the statement.

Then she heard her sister crying upstairs. "I'm like, 'Okay, this is kind of weird. My mom's screaming too. Then I run up, then I saw everything."

On Wednesday, her 11-year-old sister took the stand. The accused sobbed so loudly when upon seeing the little girl that Justice John McMahon called a recess.

The jury saw a videotaped statement that the younger girl gave to police some three hours after the attack. "My mum wanted to go with another guy," the girl, then 9, told the officer.

"She said that she wanted to go tomorrow," the girl continued. "Then last night my dad got so angry that he hit her and he blamed it on himself."

She said she was lying beside her mother on her parents' bed when the attack occurred. "After he hit her I saw blood on her," she said.

"He said, `Now you don't have a mum.'."

The trial continues.

Three teens have been arrested after a laxative-laced hotdog landed in the wrong hands at a party, police say.

A misunderstanding occurred at a May 25 barbecue attended by Thornhill Secondary School students, Constable Marina Orlovski said.

An 18-year-old female ate a hotdog laced with a laxative, she said.

The victim was ill for the rest of the weekend.

The hotdog was intended for another student, Orlovski said.

Facing charges of assault with a weapon and administering a noxious thing causing bodily harm are one female youth from Markham, a male youth from Toronto, and 18-year-old Alyssa Cerbu from Vaughan.