Warning: This story contains details of sexual assault and may be distressing to some readers.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has awarded a Vancouver Island woman $266,750 in damages after she was sexually assaulted by a man whose hair she was cutting.
The woman, known by her initials in Justice Christopher Giaschi’s newly released March 25 decision, claimed damages against Kevin Jeremy Greif for the assault in her Campbell River home on June 30, 2017.
The woman had been seeking $300,000 for aggravated damages and $380,000 for loss of earning capacity.
Greif was convicted criminally of sexual assault in March 2019. He appealed that decision, but a panel of three B.C. Court of Appeal justices rejected it unanimously in 2021.
In the new civil damages case, Giaschi said he accepted parts of the woman’s evidence. Greif did not testify.
According to the woman’s testimony, she had been cutting hair in her home for a few months when Greif came to her home for a haircut.
The two were in her kitchen when Greif touched her thigh, Giaschi said in the judgment. “She told him, ‘Don’t do that.’ ”
She said he did it again and she “whacked” him on the head with a comb.
Giaschi said she then finished the haircut and went to wash up in the bathroom.
The judge said when she came out of the bathroom, Greif was standing there.
She testified she was then sexually assaulted. Greif pulled up her shirt and bra, and pulled down her skirt, the court heard.
“She said she was screaming at him to stop and fought him,” Giaschi said. “She did not know how long the assault lasted but the defendant did stop before penile penetration.”
After Greif left, the woman went to see her mother, who called police.
Giaschi’s decision said the woman “testified to some bruising from the sexual assault but said the more significant injuries were psychological.”
Witnesses testified that the once-lively woman became withdrawn and fearful after the incident, her existing PTSD from a motor-vehicle accident worsened by the assault.
The woman testified that she was unable to leave the house and was harassed by Greif driving by her home and playing “cat and mouse” with her in a grocery store.
She said she wanted to kill herself and to start drinking again. She had trouble sleeping, worried that Greif would attack her in her home.
Giaschi found that the woman “exaggerated and embellished the effects of her injuries” and noted some inconsistencies in her evidence.
The judge accepted that the woman had a “debilitating fear” in the immediate aftermath of the assault, but did not accept that it was continuing, noting several occasions where she went out and was around men.
“In view of all this evidence, I accept that she has a fear of men but do not accept that it is as debilitating as she suggested,” he said.
He also did not accept that the woman is unable to work in any capacity, saying she didn’t explain why she couldn’t cut hair for women other than her mother and friends, or why she could not cut hair in a salon.
Giaschi awarded the woman $266,750, including $200,000 for general damages, $11,000 for past loss of earnings, $55,000 for future loss of earnings, and $750 for costs of future care.
He also awarded her $1,609.52 under the provisions of the Health Care Costs Recovery Act.
