The one uncontested fact to come out of Will Stephens’ sexual abuse trial is he had a messy, complicated and sordid personal life.
One of the three complainants at his Ontario Court of Justice trial agreed with Stephens’ defence lawyer, Cassandra DeMelo, on Wednesday that Stephens, a former London police officer, told her he was a sex addict and had “narcissistic tendencies.” There were times she knew he was dating three to five women a week.
That took some juggling. The woman, whose identity is protected by court order, said she became aware and ultimately became friends with the other two complainants in the case. All three of them believed they were having a monogamous, intimate, loving relationship with Stephens when he was seeing them all at the same time.
The witness also agreed she saw Stephens discussed on a website called Are We Dating the Same Guy? after Stephens’ charges were publicized and she already had spoken to the police several times about her allegations of criminal harassment and that Stephens choked her to unconsciousness and left her bruised.
Stephens, 47, who was formerly Stephen Williams before he changed his name, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges including assault, distributing an intimate image without consent and criminal harassment. Wednesday was the sixth day of the trial slated to last eight days.
It’s not the first time he’s been in legal hot water over his intimate partner relationships. He resigned from the police service in October 2021 after walking out of a professional misconduct hearing. He had been suspended with pay after he was charged with sexual assault and harassment related to an off-duty incident with an ex-girlfriend.
That led to a conditional discharge with 12 months of probation in 2019 after he pleaded guilty to making a harassing phone call and two counts of breaching release conditions.
At times, the testimony heard in Justice George Orsini’s courtroom sounded like a script from a daytime soap opera. During the cross-examination, DeMelo produced text message exchanges between the woman and Stephens in November 2022, where she said she had “the best sex in my entire life” with him and couldn’t stop thinking about it.
DeMelo suggested all parts of the sexual encounter, including the choking, were consensual and “that’s why it was the best sex of your life.”
“I disagree,” the woman said.
The woman said Stephens emotionally manipulated her. She said she has struggled to understand how she could have feelings of love after experiencing so many lows with Stephens. She told DeMelo she is “neurodivergent” and diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder. Someone like her, she said, is “prone to experiencing these emotional dysregulation moments and confusion.”
A text message exchange three days later after the “best sex” exchange showed the woman found out and was “a bit stressed out” that Stephens was still seeing another of the complainants at the same time he was seeing her and pushed away a plan they go to a football game together.
Stephens professed his love to the woman, and she said she loved him, calling their intimate connection “phenomenal” in a romantic text message exchange on Nov. 8, 2021.
“By that date, you’ve already had this incident where you claim you were choked to unconsciousness, choked to the point where you could not breathe and bitten,” DeMelo said. “And yet, you write ‘I love everything about the way it feels when we are intimate’, because you loved everything.” The woman disagreed.
In other messages, the woman said they had similar sexual tastes and “we are both kinky.” She also said she trusted him.
She told DeMelo Stephens had choked her three or four times during intimacy. She was “terrified” after the second choking event and called that part of the relationship “three weeks of hell.”
She broke off the relationship in mid-November 2022 and told Stephens not to contact her. In a text message, she told Stephens another complainant had stopped by her house to confirm she saw Stephens the prior summer – and he was chasing her – while he was seeing the witness. “I don’t think I could feel more betrayed,” she wrote to Stephens in a text message. They also warned the third complainant to be careful.
The witness went to the police later that month and gave a total of four police statements. She told DeMelo she heeded the warning of police not to speak to the others. However, she had maintained a friendship with one of the women.
DeMelo produced an email to the police from December 2022 saying she and one of the other complainants were upset about a new Instagram account set up by Stephens, with the name I Will Always Win after he had been charged.
The woman said the account was “threatening” but agreed Stephens always used that moniker before he was charged.
“You have gone on a campaign to get Will in as much trouble as possible using the other women he was sleeping with at the time,” DeMelo said to the woman, before listing off four women not named in the case that she told the police about.
“Incorrect,” the woman said.
She said she had learned from her experience with Stephens and “I don’t regret anything…. Like he told me, he’s here to teach women lessons and I have learned very valuable lessons from him that I will take forward.”
The trial continues on Thursday.