Ex-London police officer proposed marriage after breakup: Witness

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A woman at the sexual assault trial of a former London police officer testified he kept showing up at her home, and left gifts and even letters proposing marriage in English and her native language long after the relationship was supposedly over.

“I asked him not to attend at my house,” one of the complainants in the trial of Stephen Williams, who has legally changed his name to Will Stephens, testified Wednesday. “I wanted to start a new relationship with someone else.”

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However, defence lawyer Cassandra DeMelo pointed out that, despite the relationship formally ending in May 2021, the woman still saw Stephens and even went out to dinner with him after cancelling a date.

The woman, whose identity is protected by court order, is testifying with the help of a translator. She is one of three complainants at the trial slated to last eight days.

Stephens, 47, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges including sexual assault, distributing an intimate image without consent and criminal harassment in connection to incidents involving three women.

The first witness was involved with Stephens starting in February 2021; they broke up in May 2021. In earlier testimony, she said Stephens would throw her on the floor and sit on her and he sometimes undressed her in public by lifting her dress or ripping her clothing.

But DeMelo pointed out in her cross-examination that the woman failed to tell police about the specifics of her sexual assault allegations and that the details have only been revealed during the trial. The woman testified that she was too ashamed to tell the police.

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She also testified she made complaints to police in late 2022, after Stephens’s assorted legal troubles with other women appeared in the media. She did not ask for a translator for her police interview.

But DeMelo asserted that the woman came forward because “you learned you weren’t the only woman in his life.”

“I would be happy if I was not a woman in his life. I was very happy to hear his stories that he was dating other females,” the woman said, adding she was dating another man by the time the charges were laid.

What bothered her were the other charges related to harassing and sexually assaulting women and she compared that to how Stephens treated her. “I came to the realization that nothing would stop him,” she said.

But the woman didn’t give specific details until the trial, specifically about Stephens ripping off her bathing suit in public at the beach.

“You never told the police anything about any of this incident,” DeMelo said.

“I remember telling them that,” the woman said. She recalled she didn’t know how to say certain English words to describe what happened.

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She said she didn’t know Stephens was a police officer until November 2022, when the charges were laid, but in cross-examination she agreed Stephens told her “he worked in the capacity of a police officer.”

DeMelo also suggested Stephens told the woman about his polycythemia diagnosis – a blood disease that is potentially cancerous where a patient produces too many red blood cells – and he often gave blood because it helped keep his red blood cell count down.

The woman testified earlier that Stephens would show up at her home uninvited after they had broken up. He didn’t show any signs of aggression until after May 2021.

She told DeMelo she never initiated the contact with Stephens, but he would sometimes show up in her driveway unannounced.

After Stephens bought a security camera system, she said she bought one. She recalled one incident when she was driving home after picking up a friend at the train station and saw Stephens in her driveway.

“Frankly, that instance frightened my friend. She did not expect to find a big male on my property. I myself didn’t expect that. Since that day, I wanted to make sure the coast was clear,” she said, and had the cameras installed.

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DeMelo pointed out the woman never told that story to the police and she was never able to produce any camera footage that showed Stephens was at her house often.

In earlier testimony, the woman said Stephens often was unreasonable, and described being on his boat when Stephens called his therapist and said he couldn’t stop being aggressive toward her.

DeMelo said the woman never told the police that information and suggested it never happened. She asked the woman to give an example of when Stephens was aggressive. The woman said Stephens threatened to throw her phone out the window because she was texting her brother.

DeMelo again said that information never was said during the woman’s police statement .

DeMelo also questioned the woman’s testimony about how she said Stephens struck her with a car door. DeMelo suggested Stephens had dropped by because he was in the neighbourhood and they had a conversation near her car while she was getting ready to go out.

DeMelo suggested the conversation was friendly and the door hit her leg accidently while Stephens was shutting it for her.

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After 30 minutes, DeMelo suggested the woman called Stephens to tell him she cancelled her plans and she was at a London restaurant. They had “a lovely evening, a nice date,” the lawyer said.

And that incident wasn’t relayed to the police. “I didn’t think it was important,” the woman said.

Stephens left a note on the woman’s fridge after dropping off some kitty litter and later left two letters, one in English and the other in the woman’s native tongue, professing his love for her.

“You were right,” the letter read. “How do I show you love by bringing you cat litter. Silly, isn’t it?  I never cherished you the way I do now…. My life without you is incomplete…. So no, this isn’t cat litter. This is a promise to be the man you fell in love with and one day be your husband.”

The letters, DeMelo said, contradict the woman’s testimony. But the woman said Stephens made it clear when they broke up he didn’t want a relationship, yet he kept showing up at her home.

When she asked him directly why, “He told me he didn’t need anyone in his life.”

Stephens was a London police constable until he resigned in October 2021 after walking out of a professional misconduct hearing. He was suspended with pay after he was charged with sexual assault and harassment related to an off-duty incident with an ex-girlfriend.

He was given a conditional discharge with 12 months of  probation in 2019  after pleading guilty to making a harassing phone call and two counts of breaching release conditions.

The cross-examination is expected to continue on Thursday.

jsims@postmedia.co

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