Yukon appeals court overturns sexual assault conviction against retired Whitehorse teacher

A retired Whitehorse teacher has successfully appealed his conviction in a historic case of sexual assault of a former student. The appeal judges replaced the finding of guilt with an acquittal.

In a decision Friday, Yukon Court of Appeal Judge Karan Shaner, assisted by Justices Peter Willcock and Patrice Abrioux, wrote that the trial judge in Paul Deuling’s case failed to consider all the evidence, particularly with regard to the plaintiff’s credibility.

Deuling’s lawyer Richard Fowler wrote in an email on Monday that he was “naturally very pleased with the outcome of the appeal and that Mr. Deuling was ultimately acquitted of the only charge on which he was found guilty at trial.”

Deuling was charged in 2019 with five counts of sexually touching and later abusing the plaintiff in the 1980s, from her elementary school years through her young adulthood. After a trial in 2022, Judge Brian Neal found Deuling not guilty on four counts but guilty on one count of sexual assault.

The prosecution’s case hinged largely on the plaintiff’s testimony. Neal found in his decision that her testimony had serious flaws, including inconsistencies and gaps in her memory and contradictions with the testimony of other witnesses. Nevertheless, he ruled that her testimony about a camping trip that Deuling took her on when she was 17 was credible and reliable. During the trip, she accused him of sexually abusing her.

The appeal judges, however, concluded that it had been a mistake to consider the plaintiff’s testimony about the camping trip in isolation. The “comprehensive findings of adverse credibility” of her testimony on other charges had “irretrievably” undermined her evidence as a whole.

Neal’s failure to consider all of the evidence constituted a “predominant and obvious error” in evaluating the plaintiff’s evidence about the camping trip, Shaner wrote. It also amounted to a “legal error.”

Although appeals courts can order a retrial after overturning a conviction, Shaner wrote that doing so would be “manifestly unfair” in the Deuling case.

“The trial judge acquitted Deuling on four of the five counts because he found substantial and significant deficiencies in (the plaintiff’s) credibility and reliability. He should have taken these findings into account in his analysis of count 4,” she wrote.

“A retrial solely on Count 4 would raise the same problem; the new trial judge would be deprived of the opportunity to apply the negative credibility and reliability findings in evaluating (the plaintiff’s) evidence.”

Instead, Shaner ordered an acquittal.