Ontario’s highest court will hear a Crown appeal this week of a retired Chatham violin teacher’s acquittal by a judge who believed his evidence that he measured female students’ breast area not for a “sexual purpose” but to help them play better.A year ago, Superior Court Justice Thomas Carey found Claude Trachy not guilty of numerous sexually-related offences, including indecent assault, sexual assault and sexual interference, for alleged incidents involving more than 20 complainants who were his pupils decades ago.Evidence in the trial in the southwestern Ontario city centred on Trachy’s practice of measuring the breast area of some of his pre-teen, and teenaged female students, above and below their clothes. In some instances, he took moulds of their shoulders and chest areas. Now 73, Trachy testified his intent was to help the students play better by being properly fitted for shoulder rests on their violins or violas. Trachy’s practice of measuring the breast area didn’t include his male students. The Crown argued Trachy’s actions were for his own sexual gratification.The women, who now range in age from mid-30s to 65, “all agreed that they generally felt uncomfortable exposing their breasts but, at the time, trusted Mr. Trachy to be conducting himself in their best interests and for the purpose of advancing their ability to play the violin,” Carey wrote in his judgment.The judge said he accepted Trachy’s evidence “that any touching of his female students was not done for any sexual purpose and that his intentions were to help his female students play better.”In 1993, Trachy was found guilty of two counts of sexual interference relating to two sisters who were his students. He received a 60-day intermittent sentence. Carey heard no evidence about that case. In a factum filed with the Ontario Court of Appeal in Toronto, where the case will be argued Tuesday, the Crown states ...
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