Verdict delivered in Supreme Court on Friday afternoon

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

Krysta Grimes, a St. John’s substitute teacher accused of having sex with her underage student in 2018, has been acquitted.

Justice Vikas Khaladkar dismissed the sexual exploitation charge against her in Supreme Court on Friday afternoon.

Reading from his decision, Khaladkar said he couldn’t accept the complainant’s credibility because of a series of “serious, significant inconsistencies” in his testimony.

Grimes leapt from the dock, hugging her lawyer, Rosellen Sullivan. She dodged a question from a reporter, surrounded by family and visibly emotional as she left the courtroom.

Sullivan declined to speak to reporters.

Grimes, 34, was charged with one count of sexual exploitation for engaging in a sex act with a person under 18 while in a position of trust or authority.

She appeared at Supreme Court in January for a brief trial, during which prosecution called only three witnesses: the police officer who led the investigation against her, a member of the Newfoundland and Labrador English School District, and the complainant himself. Grimes did not take the stand.

The complainant told the court last month he was granted access to Grimes’s cellphone during class to play music, and added himself to her Snapchat account.

He testified the two began texting over the app, which deletes messages as soon as they’re opened.

Those messages eventually turned sexual, he said.

He alleges the two met in a private location outside St. John’s at some point in the spring of 2018, had intercourse, and continued chatting over text and Snapchat until the school board received a letter in December complaining of rumours she had slept with students.

But Khaladkar didn’t accept that story, pointing to the complainant’s track record of telling police details he later changed in court.

That suggests he’s not a credible witness, the judge said, and fails to prove the encounter happened beyond a reasonable doubt.

Complainant lied to fit in: defence

During the trial, the complainant testified he initially denied the alleged sexual relationship to protect himself and Grimes, but in later meetings with school administration he reversed his position, alleging one sexual encounter. Grimes was arrested in August 2019 because of that allegation.

Grimes’s lawyer, Rosellen Sullivan, argued the student ran with rumours that Grimes had sex with students, pointing to inconsistencies in his testimony that suggested he made up a story to impress his friends.

The complainant couldn’t recall the date of their alleged encounter, where it happened or what sexual positions they used — all indicators, Sullivan argued, that the meeting hadn’t actually occurred.

She also stressed the lack of hard evidence from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary investigation, which failed to order location data from the cellphones of the complainant and the accused and did not uncover any texts of a sexual nature between the two.

“This case is about the absence of evidence more than anything else,” she said last month.

“There is no credible evidence that this offence took place.… We have the word of a person who contradicted himself at every turn, and … a shoddy investigation that allowed him to do it.”

Cheryl Gullage, a spokesperson for the provincial English school board, said after the verdict that the district will “review today’s court decision and has nothing further to offer at this time.”

Gullage did not respond to a question about whether Grimes would return to teaching with the district.

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual abuse and has been affected by these reports, there are resources available. You can access crisis lines and local support services through this government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.