The Good Samaritan who chased and then struggled face-to-face with a hammer attack suspect minutes after a woman was bashed in the head in broad daylight in 2011 testified Wednesday that he didn’t recognize the accused.
In a dramatic exchange before the jury, Nabil Benhsaien, the accused who is representing himself, asked the key witness how he would compare to the suspect he tried to capture.
“If you can’t be sure, the answer is, No. I’m not going to make up any bullsh-t stories,” Dexter Sullivan, 48, told the jury.
“You don’t recognize me as the suspect,” Nabil Benhsaien, 38, asked in cross-examination.
“No,” Sullivan replied.
Dexter Sullivan
Benhsaien is on trial on a dozen charges, including aggravated assault and assault with a hammer in vicious attacks on five women.
Sullivan presented himself to the court as an honest witness, and when asked to recount the chase and struggle, he became animated and spoke loudly and quickly, often motioning with his arms and legs, at one point standing up in the witness box to demonstrate how the fleeing suspect scaled a backyard fence in downtown Ottawa.
Benhsaien spent hours cross-examining Sullivan — who was scheduled to be cross-examined for 15 minutes — and often repeated his line of questioning in fine detail.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Colin McKinnon interrupted: “You are entitled to a fair trial, not an endless one.”
The jury also heard that Sullivan was able to pull the suspect’s hoodie off during the struggle and that DNA from it matched the suspect’s genetic fingerprint.
The jury trial continues on Thursday in Courtroom 34 at the Elgin Street Courthouse.
