A Territorial Court judge has found a Yellowknife-based military member not guilty of one count of sexual assault.
Adam Besharah was charged with sexually assaulting a woman while she was unconscious at his military housing unit in Yellowknife following a social night out in February 2025.
The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, testified that she woke up with Besharah on top of her, kissing her lips and pressing her hand against his penis over his clothes.
Besharah denied the allegation and testified in his own defence during trial.
Delivering his ruling in the case on Friday morning, Judge Robert Gorin said he had “thought a great deal” about the evidence and arguments given by the Crown and defence.
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Gorin noted that, during their testimony, Besharah and the woman described largely similar versions of events regarding the evening of February 8, 2025.
Discrepancies in their accounts included their main topic of conversation that night and whether a sexual assault occurred.
Gorin said he generally found Besharah’s evidence not to be credible.
The judge noted inconsistencies between Besharah’s testimony and text messages he had sent to the woman on the evening of February 8 and over the next two days. Parts of Besharah’s testimony made “no sense,” he added.
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By contrast, Gorin said he found the woman’s testimony to be credible, consistent and unshaken on cross-examination.
But the judge said determining whether to convict Besharah was “not simply a case of deciding whose evidence I find more likely” and that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is a high standard.
Gorin said he was concerned that the woman had testified she pretended to be asleep for some period after she became conscious then, during cross-examination, told the court she had not pretended to be asleep.
The judge added that the woman testified she had a memory of Besharah coming toward her before she passed out but was unsure if that actually happened.
Gorin said while he found the woman to be credible and felt she was doing her best to truthfully recall what happened, he was unsure of the reliability of her evidence at a crucial time in the case.
Gorin said he believed the woman may not have been fully conscious at the time and while she testified with certainty about what happened, certainty was not the same as accuracy.
As a result, he found the Crown had not proven Besharah’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and acquitted him of the charge.
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