By Canadian Press

Crown says Boyle, accused of assault, made up self-serving nude protest story

Oct 2, 2019 | 11:52 AM

OTTAWA — A federal prosecutor says former hostage Joshua Boyle lied about likening his wife’s tendency to strip off her clothes to the nude protests of Russian dissenters who settled in western Canada.

Crown attorney Jason Neubauer says Boyle slipped the fabrication into a fictional narrative in trying to defend himself against charges of assaulting wife Caitlan Coleman after the pair were freed from overseas captivity at the hands of Taliban-linked extremists.

Boyle, 36, has pleaded not guilty to several offences against Coleman including assault, sexual assault and unlawful confinement in the period of October to December 2017 in Ottawa.

Boyle has testified that Coleman would often disrobe when agitated, and that he had joked with her about behaving like a Doukhobor, a sect whose members sometimes protested in the nude.

Under cross-examination this week, Coleman appeared to have no idea who the Doukhobors were and denied taking off her clothes when distressed.

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Neubauer says Boyle’s story was “simply untrue” and just one example of his attempts to create his own, more favourable version of events.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 2, 2019.

The Canadian Press