Southwestern Ontario dad guilty of sexually assaulting teen babysitters

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice building in downtown Windsor is shown on Nov. 18, 2024.

A Windsor judge has found a Belle River man guilty of sexually assaulting three minors who had been babysitters for his children.

Allen Corcoran, 47, was found guilty on seven of eight counts that included sexual assault of a minor, indecent exposure and inviting sexual touching.

The victims were between the ages of 12 and 15 at the time of the offences in 2017 and 2018 and had been hired as babysitters for Corcoran’s children, the court heard. The victims’ identities are protected by a court-ordered publication ban.

In rendering guilty verdicts on Tuesday following a trial, Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia said the testimony of the complainants was credible and reliable.

The judge rejected defence lawyer Paul Esco’s suggestion at trial that the complainants had colluded with each other ahead of giving their evidence.

“While some of the witnesses knew that the others had made complaints, there was no evidence that they either intentionally concocted their evidence or inadvertently influenced each other’s evidence,” Carroccia said.

The incidents occurred over a period of two years either at Corcoran’s home in Belle River or in his truck while driving the youths home after babysitting.

Corcoran was 43 when Ontario Provincial Police arrested and charged him in 2022.

According to Carroccia, the youngest complainant was a regular babysitter at Corcoran’s household and 12 years old in 2017 at the time she was the victim of several incidents of a sexual nature.

On one occasion, the girl was changing the diapers of one of Corcoran’s children when “(Corcoran) came up behind her and put his hand up under her sports bra … and grabbed her breasts,” Carroccia said.

“She was very scared and didn’t know what to do.”

In another incident, the judge said in her decision, Corcoran was driving the babysitter home, with all his own children in the backseat, when the victim noticed that Corcoran “was playing with his penis or masturbating and was trying to get her to touch it.”

According to the victim, Corcoran “took his hands off the steering wheel and threatened to crash the car” while trying to grab the victim’s hand, Carroccia said.

The victim also testified that when she was babysitting, Corcoran would sometimes follow her around from room to room while he masturbated, the judge said.

The defence argued during the trial that several of the incidents involved “accidental touching as opposed to an intentional act,” Carroccia said.

But the judge said that Corcoran, who also testified during the trial, had been “sometimes a difficult witness” who “denied even basic things in the face of other evidence.”

Corcoran “appeared to be pushing an agenda that he was the victim of a plot” by another individual he alleged had recruited the complainants to make false allegations against him, Carroccia said.