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Pitt rave suspect says sex was consensual

Sexual assault charge was stayed against Colton Ashton McMorris.
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At first RCMP described what occurred at the rave on Harris Road as a “gang rape.”

The young man once accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl at a rave in Pitt Meadows had no idea their encounter was photographed until graphic pictures went viral on the Internet.

“I was embarrassed,” said Colton Ashton McMorris, who was subpoenaed to testify Tuesday at a trial for Dennis John Allen Warrington, accused of posting graphic photographs on Facebook of McMorris and the girl having sex.

Warrington is charged with possessing and distributing child pornography.

McMorris, who just turned 20, described the party that took place on Sept. 10, 2010 as loud and crowded.

His mom drove him to the party, on a farm on Harris Road, during which he consumed between six and 10 beers.

McMorris was charged with sexual assault after the rave, but the charge was stayed in February after Crown found the available evidence was unlikely to land a conviction. None of the testimony he gave in court on Tuesday can be used against him.

The Westview secondary grad didn’t know the 16-year-old girl until he met her on the dance floor.

“We were hitting it off,” McMorris told the court.

“She seemed to like me. I liked her. She was kissing me and I was kissing her. We were having a great time together.”

When Crown prosecutor Wendy van Tongeren Harvey asked him whether the girl was sober or not, McMorris said the girl didn’t seem intoxicated. He claimed she eventually led him out of the barn.

“She pulled me by the wrist,” said McMorris.

He told the court they headed for a secluded area and sat down in tall grass, where they continued to make out. Things eventually escalated to oral sex, but did not include intercourse.

“She was fine,” McMorris told Crown.

“She was enjoying it.”

McMorris asked the girl if she had a condom. To which he said she replied, “no.”

“I had no idea if she was on birth control or not,” he said.

“I just wanted to be safe.”

McMorris only realized there were people watching them when someone shouted something profane.

“We weren’t paying attention to those guys. I was focused on her and she was focused on me,” said McMorris.

“I think these guys proceeded to get closer and that’s when it ended.”

McMorris and the girl left the grassy field and headed back to the barn to find her friends.

He told the court that’s when the girl realized she had lost her cell phone and figured she most likely dropped it in the tall grass.

He said when the girl found her friends, they headed back to the field to look for her phone.

He told the court the girl was upset and crying.

“She was crying because she lost her phone,” said McMorris.

“It was a $400 phone. It was a big loss.”

McMorris claimed that when one of the girl’s friends suggested they come back in the morning to look for her phone, the girl got even more upset. He said the girl blurted out to her friend: “Your dad didn’t punch you for failing English.”

The court heard that McMorris, the girl and a group of her friends eventually headed to McDonald’s around 3 a.m.

McMorris said he had his arm around the girl as they walked down Harris Rd.

“I had left my friends to be with this girl and her friends,” he told the court.

The group didn’t hang out at McDonalds for long, maybe 15 minutes. McMorris rolled marijuana into a “joint” and said everyone smoked it in a circle, then went home in cabs.

When asked by Crown to describe the girl’s mood when he said goodbye, McMorris said she was not intoxicated.

“She was fine … like she was at the beginning of the night.”

He still had no idea his tryst with a girl in Grade 11 had been documented in photographs. He found out about the photographs when he friend called an hour later.

Although he was embarrassed, McMorris said he shrugged it off and went to sleep.

The friend eventually sent him a text with a photograph attached.

The next day, McMorris said he was constantly being asked about the photographs on Facebook.

He said he told people he had met a nice girl and one thing led to another.

“I was not trying to hide anything,” he said. “I knew I had done nothing wrong.”

The girl, however, continues to maintain that she did not consent to the sex.

When court proceedings against McMorris came to a halt earlier this year, the girl – now a young woman – made a public plea for more witnesses to break the “code of silence” and come forward.

She has yet to testify at the trial, but is expected to take the stand next week.

The teenage boy, who took the photographs of McMorris and the girl, was also charged with distributing child porn. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of distributing obscene material and was sentence Feb. 10 to 12 months probation.