Warning: Some may find the details in this story disturbing
The Saskatoon Prosecutions Office is retrying sexual assault charges against a man found guilty earlier this year of attempted murder.
A jury found Cory Smockum, 38, guilty of attempted murder on Feb. 8 after a five-day trial in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench. But the jury couldn’t reach a verdict on two other charges of aggravated sexual assault and choking to overcome resistance so Justice G.M. Currie declared a mistrial on those two charges.
Smockum, a former North Battleford resident, was charged in connection to an incident on Oct. 14, 2018, near Hanley, after Saskatoon Police responded to a call that a man was threatening a woman.
During the trial, the court heard that Smockum sexually and physically assaulted his former girlfriend. He also threatened to kill others and had “serious intentions of killing everyone he could that night,” the victim told the court.
The assault occurred in a garage after the two attended a sled rally together in Hanley.
The victim said Smockum kicked the garage door open, threw her on her face on the garage floor, closed the door, got on top of her and punched her continuously in the face with his fist and elbow. She said he called her names and threatened her.
She lost consciousness and when she came to she said he was still hitting her and she was in a different spot in the garage. She was choked unconscious three times, she said. The victim told the court that during the third time he choked her “everything went warm,” her vision went and she “made peace with dying that night.”
After the assault, Smockum took the victim on a quad through a field, telling her she was going to end up like her friend Ashley Morin who was last seen in North Battleford in July 2018. RCMP believe Morin, 31, is a victim of homicide but her body has never been found.
While going through the field, however, Smockum rolled the quad and was injured. The victim used this opportunity to escape, running and hiding in a grain elevator. Police found her there in the early morning hours of Sunday, Oct. 14, 2018.
Court records show the victim spent six days in hospital with broken ribs, a brain bleed, damage to her knees and stitches on her lip. She had a cut on the side of her head, black eyes, bruising and ear damage. The victim, when on the stand, said her and Smockum weren’t dating at the time of the incident and that he had become controlling and intimidating.
The court also heard that Smockum has a 2016 conviction after being arrested in 2015 by North Battleford RCMP. He was charged with sexual assault, assault and choking to overcome resistance. The choking charge was dropped and the assault and sexual assault charges were changed to assault causing bodily harm and sexual assault causing bodily harm, respectively. Smockum was found guilty in 2016 of assault causing bodily harm. He was found not guilty of sexual assault causing bodily harm.
Smockum is scheduled to appear in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench on June 19 for a pretrial hearing on charges of aggravated sexual assault and choking to overcome resistance.
Smockum is scheduled to appear in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench on June 17 to be sentenced on the attempted murder charge.
