Sexual assault trial opens in Halifax for former associate pastor

A trial opened Monday for a former associate pastor of a church in Hammonds Plains, N.S.,who's accused of sexual assault and sexual touching by someone in a position of trust and authority.

Michael Oliver Fisher, 40, is accused of abusing a woman who is now 29, but was 17 at the time of the alleged assaults in 2008.

The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, was the first witness to testify at Fisher's trial before Justice Darlene Jamieson in Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Halifax.

The woman said she first met Fisher when she was just 15 and she came to consider him a friend, mentor and spiritual adviser. She said they kept in almost constant contact through MSN Messenger, exchanging messages late into the night almost every night.

The woman said she was going through a rough time with her family and reliedon Fisher's counsel and support. She said their online conversations would last hours and they would talk about almost everything.

"Conversations with him could make or break the day," she told the court.

A turning point at 17

She said at some point, he told her that they couldn't appear to be too close in public because members of his church Emmanuel Baptist Churchhad noticed and commented on his apparent connection to her. She said the most they had done up to that point wasthe occasional hug.

But she testified that things changed after she turned 17. She said in some of their message exchanges, he would tell her he was horny and said he wished she could come massage him.

She said they would get together at his place in Wolfville, N.S., where he was studying divinity at Acadia University, or her place in the Halifax area to watch movies. She said they would cuddle and caress one another. She said one night she gave him a light kiss on the lips.

"From there, it was like an explosion happened," the complainant testified.

She said it rapidly progressed to deep kisses and partial nudity. She said within just weeks of that first kiss, they had intercourse. She said she had no prior sexual experience and was saving herself for marriage.

"I didn't want to be in a position where I was doing things with someone that I wasn't going to marry," she said.

The complainantsaid after each sexual encounter, Fisher would act distant toward her and tell her that the relationship couldn't continue. She said he would be cold and ignore her. But she said it wouldn't be long after each conversation that he would start telling her he missed her and wanted to get back together.

"I became a shell of a person who only lived for those moments of relief when he would say that he missed me," she said.

The complainantsaid as her 18th birthday approached, Fisher started saying she would soon be legal. The woman said she didn't understand the commentbecause she knew the legal drinking age was 19. She said she thought perhaps Fisher was referring to the age where someone could get married without requiring parental consent.

'So naive,' says complainant

The woman said whenever he would tell her they had to break off their relationship, Fisher would make her feel like she was the problem, that she was too emotional or too immature.

"I really, really was so naive," she said.

The woman left the country for a year in 2012. She said when she returned, she spoke to members of his church and eventually church authorities asked to talk to her.

She said she never thought of calling police because she said she wasn't aware of the criminal boundaries.

The allegations against Fisher stem from 2008. He left Emmanuel Baptist Church in 2014 and became an adviser to students at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S. He was suspended from that job when the charges were laid. His trial is expected to run for six days.