STRIP-SEARCH ON COLD, RAINY NIGHT

B.C. Supreme Court: Woman Testifies Border Guard Told Her She Had To Comply
Or Be Jailed

An American woman alleged Wednesday that Canadian border official
Daniel Johnson Greenhalgh strip-searched her outdoors on a cold,
drizzly night three years ago.

The woman, who can't be identified due to a publication ban, was on
her way into Canada at the Peace Arch crossing for a short vacation
with two friends on April 13, 2007, when the trio were stopped at the
border.

The woman testified in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster that she
didn't know why they were referred for a secondary inspection. She
said that the car she was in and her belongings were searched, and
that Greenhalgh questioned her and her female friend.

She said Greenhalgh asked her about drugs, and testified that she
quickly admitted she was carrying a tablet of ecstasy in her pants
pocket and handed it to Greenhalgh.

After, she said she was repeatedly asked if she'd shared the drugs
with her friends. She said no, court was told.

At one point, she said, Greenhalgh told her that she would be
strip-searched, and that she could be detained and searched by females
later or by him right away.

Crown prosecutor Christina Godlewska asked the woman what she
understood her options to be.

"Have a strip-search or go to jail," the woman responded.

She said Greenhalgh took her to a fenced area outdoors, where she took
off her clothes. She said he never touched her and that the search
took just a few minutes.

After the search, the woman and her friends were sent back to the
U.S.

The ordeal, she testified, "gave me chills," adding: "Never again do I
ever want to go again to Canada. Ever."

The woman described the drive home from the border after she and her
friend were refused entry into Canada.

She said her friend, who was allegedly sexually assaulted by
Greenhalgh, was "very quiet the whole way home."

"We had mentioned that he was a pervert. That is what I remember," she
told the court.

The woman's female friend alleges that she was also searched and that
Greenhalgh touched her. She will testify next.

Greenhalgh's lawyer, Joe McCarthy, began his cross-examination by
bringing up inconsistencies between the woman's testimony Wednesday
and what she said previously to police and in a preliminary inquiry.

The woman said on a number of occasions that she was nervous
previously and has had time to think about the incident.

"So you had a lot of time to reconstruct things," McCarthy
said.

The woman denied reconstructing the incident.

When McCarthy suggested that she and her friend had "made up a story"
about the alleged border ordeal, she replied: "No, never. I've no
reason to lie. "It was a very embarrassing matter." Greenhalgh, a
former Canada Border Services Agency officer, is on trial charged with
three counts of sexual assault and one count of breach of trust by a
public officer.

The trial continues.