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TheStar.com | GTA | Boyfriend of pregnant teen acquitted
Boyfriend of pregnant teen acquitted
DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR
Noellee Mowatt leaves court in a green prison jumpsuit with her lawyer, Lydia Riva, after being released on bail, April 11, 2008.
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Pregnant teen who recanted assault testimony lacks credibility, judge rules, as pair set free young teen porn to reconcile
May 31, 2008 04:30 AM
Michele Henry
Crime Reporter
A look of shock, mingled with glee, crept across Christopher Harbin's face yesterday after a judge found him not guilty of beating up his pregnant girlfriend, a 19-year-old who was jailed just to make sure she would testify against him.
"I'm just so happy this is over and done with," said Harbin, 26, after reading Justice Beverly Brown's decision to acquit him. "I'm just ecstatic. I just want to go home."
He was facing eight charges, including nn teen model assault with a weapon, uttering death threats and forcible confinement, after his girlfriend told police in a videotaped statement that he punched her, stabbed at her toe with a knife and threatened to kill her unborn baby.
But when she took the witness stand, Noellee Mowatt recanted her original testimony. She said bruises on her face and neck weren't caused by fists and weapons, but by bug bites and her own ineptitude. Her face turned black and blue, she said, from sleeping on something hard and the gash on her toe was from banging her foot against a door.
Brown ruled that Mowatt's lies to police set off a chain of events leading to the arrest and jailing of her boyfriend for five months and destroyed her credibility as a witness.
"I find I cannot really believe anything Ms. Mowatt says latin teen tease in relation to these events," Brown said in her written decision. "Her credibility has been irreversibly tainted in this case by the extreme inconsistencies in her versions."
Mowatt was arrested on a bench warrant earlier this year after a judge decided she would ignore a subpoena to appear in court. With no criminal record, except shoplifting charges pending, she was held at Vanier Centre for Women in Milton for 10 art photo teen model days. While in detention, she said she didn't want to testify and wished her boyfriend would walk out of court a free man.
Mowatt, who delivered the couple's first child on mature teen lesbian Monday, a girl named Naelle, was planning to resume her life with Harbin. Despite reports the Children's Aid Society was going to seize the baby, Melanie Persaud of CAS said there are no plans to do so. Any concerns the CAS had a few months ago no longer exist, she said, but workers are constantly assessing situations.
"If the child is at risk we'll bring her into our care," Persaud said. Harbin, who will not be released from custody until he answers to unrelated criminal charges in Barrie, said he's looking forward to raising his child and reconciling with Mowatt.
"I love her," he said. "Absolutely."
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