Pupil who had sex with her teacher dated him for 13 years, court hears
Woman says first sexual experience with him took place when she was 16
Susan Lazaruk, The Province
Published: Tuesday, October 17, 2006

A woman who regularly had sex with her high-school teacher throughout Grade 12 testified yesterday she continued a 13-year relationship with him after school ended.

Bridget Ross, now 44, told a Vancouver Provincial Court judge she remembered being "shocked" when her teacher, Tom Ellison, digitally penetrated her while she took her turn sharing sleeping quarters with him on a school sailing trip when she was 16.

"I didn't expect it," she told the second week of Ellison's trial. "There was no indication it was coming."

Ellison, now 62, has pleaded not guilty to 16 counts of gross indecency, indecent assault or sexual assault for the allegations dating from 1972 to 1983 at Prince of Wales Secondary school.

Ellison's defence is to challenge the constitutionality of the charges, which have since been replaced by sexual assault.

Judge Mark Takahashi also heard yesterday how horseplay involving "wedgies" in the Quest classroom ended with a student being traumatized after having her panties forcibly removed by Ellison and another teacher.

Court also heard how boys on a sailing trip threw girls overboard and then urinated on them, while Ellison watched.

After Ross's first sexual experience with Ellison, he swore her to secrecy after telling her he didn't know what to do about the encounter, which led her to believe it was a first for him, Ross testified.

"I felt special and like he had chosen me over other students and I was very flattered," she said. "I would attribute it all to the fact he was a teacher and older."

The following school year she biked to Ellison's live-aboard boat in False Creek almost every Friday during Grade 12.

She and Ellison drank rum-and-Coke supplied by Ellison -- and one time shared a hash cookie he said he got from a fellow teacher -- and, at first, engaged in oral sex, Ross said.

"I recall him telling me we had to wait until I was 18 and then when I was 18, it was legal," said the attractive brunette, a married mother of two.

The day she turned 18, Ellison kissed her on the mouth in front of fellow teacher Dean Hall in the Quest office, Ross said.

"He wished me happy birthday," she recalled.

Their adult consensual relationship, which continued until 1993 and isn't the subject of any charges, was marked by frequent breakups and Ross's suspicions that Ellison wasn't monogamous.

She said she once found an unlocked wooden box stuffed with letters from fawning former Quest students.

"I knew all of them," said Ross. "He said [he kept them] to show that all those girls had been interested in him and not the other way around."

She said the two grew apart and the relationship ended with no bitterness.

Under cross-examination, defence lawyer Bill Smart accused Ross, who in 2000 contacted police, the media and other students, of pushing for a Vancouver police criminal investigation to spite Ellison for not wanting to start a family with her.

He accused Ross of going to police only after Ellison and his current common-law spouse had a daughter together. And Smart showed court an e-mail from Ross's husband to an adventure company that supplies clients to Ellison's boat-guiding business telling them he was facing gross-indecency charges and had had sex with a minor.

"You wanted to cause Mr. Ellison as much harm as you could," Smart suggested.

But Ross told court she was urged by others during preparations for her class's 20th-year reunion in 2000 to contact others and go to police.

"I had a feeling there was a large number of people who had sexual contact with Tom," she said. "At that time I was a teacher and a parent and I realized how inappropriate [his behaviour] was."

Earlier, the trial heard from a woman, now 39, who told of a rambunctious day in 1982 in the Quest classroom when students and some teachers were giving each other "wedgies" or "gonch pulls."

The complainant said she gave her teacher, Stan Callegari, a wedgie, and ran to the back office, chased by him and teacher Dean Hull, where they and Ellison pinned her down and, while she struggled and screamed "no," ripped her panties off under her mini-skirt as other students watched.

"I was very degraded and embarrassed and I didn't know what to do or if I could go back to the classroom after that," said the woman, whose identity is protected by a court ban.

When she returned, her panties, ripped in two and stained with her menstrual blood, were tacked on the wall.

She did not report the incident.

"I had seen some previous activity in Quest and had seen some people completely ostracized and shamed verbally," she recalled.

slazaruk@png.canwest.com