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A woman told court Wednesday of her relationship with her teacher who is charged with sexually assaulting her, and how she came to regret the trysts.
The woman, being identified as Amy because she can’t be named under a publication ban, said she began contacting teacher Jason Selby just before she graduated from Calgary’s Western Canada High School in June 2018.
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The following month, after classes had ended, she accepted an invitation from Selby to come to his Woodbine home, where he told her other students had referred to him as “Mr. Dreamy.”
At his home, the two smoked cannabis in his hot tub before having sex on a couch while his young daughter slept upstairs.
Afterwards, she said he was emphatic nobody learn about their relationship, but also never asked about her age.
“He said, ‘It could be really serious if someone saw us together . . . it could ruin my career,’” Amy told the Alberta Court of Justice.
She said he also sent her photos he’d taken of her naked body.
At the time they first had sex, Amy was about six weeks shy of her 18th birthday and Selby was 33 years old, and had last been her teacher in the fall/winter semester of 2017- early 2018.
Under the Criminal Code, someone considered to be in a position of trust and authority can be charged with sexual assault until the victim turns 18.
Teacher was ‘intense’ about keeping relationship secret, woman tells court
Selby is also charged with being in a position of trust toward a young person, thereby unlawfully committing sexual exploitation.
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Court heard that in the weeks following their first sexual encounter that went past her 18th birthday, Amy and Selby had intercourse multiple times, with the woman recounting how he was always careful never to be seen with or connected to her.
She recalled a time the two were at a fast-food drive-thru in Oakridge when he was recognized by an employee and former student, and moved his body in the driver’s seat to prevent the staffer from seeing her.
“He was very intense about it,” she testified.
“At that point, I felt really special that he was risking (his career) in that way.”
But by the following Christmas, after they’d spent time apart, Amy said she began questioning and regretting their relationship and wondering if Selby had simply been using her sexually.
“It made me feel weird, super uncomfortable and kind of ashamed — I (hadn’t) really processed that it was messed up,” she told court.
‘I felt like an adult at the time. I acted like it.’
The relationship continued for two years, but Amy said she eventually suspected Selby had been having relations with other students. She considered her own sister, who by that time was the same age as she’d been in 2018.
“It was like a paradigm shift in our relationship (after) he told me he had no interests in (other) students, that I was the only one he’d pursued something in a sexual relationship,” she said.
Amy told court she’d been mistaken in thinking in 2018 that “I felt like an adult at the time. I acted like it.”
Defence lawyer Alain Hepner will argue Selby wasn’t in a position of trust or authority at the time.
Selby is no longer teaching.
The trial, which is scheduled for two days, is to resume Sept. 6.
BKaufmann@postmedia.com
