“If I wanted her dead, she’d be dead”: Suspect testifies on day four of Whitby assault trial

An Oshawa court heard from Anthony Doiron-Francis today. He’s the Whitby man accused in the violent assault of a 50-year-old woman, and leaving her for dead in July 2020.

Doiron-Francis is facing charges of attempted murder and aggravated sexual assault. He took the stand on the fourth day of trial on Nov. 22, and said the situation “got out of hand”.

The Oshawa courthouse heard Doiron-Francis maintains his only goal that night was to film a woman from behind, to get a video of her butt jiggling for his personal sexual gratification. He says he has a problem, that he “never got treated for”, which is why he needed to follow the victim, whose identity remains protected due to a publication ban.

He told the court he had no intention of hurting the victim, or anyone. He admitted to following her for a distance to ensure he could get “close up” to get a video, and when she confronted him about the recording, he says he acted out of panic.

When the victim turned around, Doiron-Francis says he had never been in a situation where he had been confronted about recording someone, and that he proceeded to hit her on the head, which then led to a struggle off the sidewalk into the wooded area.

Crown attorney Tammy Holland outlined the route the victim and Doiron-Francis took as he followed her.

Doiron-Francis maintained he was just trying to “get out”, and get his phone, which he feared anyone seeing because of pornography on it. He described the struggle between he and the victim, which led to putting her in a headlock. He says he was just “doing anything I could to make her shut up”.

The Crown says she was wearing tight leggings, and the victims underwear was also removed. She asked if this is when he intended to rape her.

Doiron-Francis responded, “She wasn’t going to get raped, I had no intentions of sexually assaulting her”. He said her pants came off when he fell and grabbed onto them. He “couldn’t control” her underwear coming off too.

Doiron-Francis admited he did irreparable damage to the victim’s life, but says he didn’t mean to. He was trying to get a video, of anyone, and it happened to be the victim. “I didn’t want my entire reason for being outside to be defeated” he said.

He said, “If I wanted her dead, she’d be dead”.

The trial is expected to continue on Nov. 29.