Teen witnesses testify in Stratford voyeurism trial

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes graphic details that may be upsetting to readers

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Two teens who allege they saw a Stratford man crouched outside a bedroom window while masturbating were the key Crown witnesses during the opening day of a two-day trial.

Greg Verellen, 45, faces several charges stemming from these March 17 allegations, including committing an indecent act, voyeurism and two counts of breaching a probation order. On Tuesday, the first day of a trial scheduled to conclude on Dec. 5, several witnesses, including the two teenage girls, the father of one of the girls and a Stratford police sergeant, testified as part of Crown lawyer Jeffrey Costain’s case against Verellen .

Based on the body camera footage of their statements to police – made within a few hours of them reportedly seeing a man crouched outside a basement bedroom window – the two teen girls, whose identities are protected by a court-ordered publication ban, testified separately about what happened on that night.

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Both testified they saw an older man with a scraggly beard wearing a bright yellow and orange high-visibility construction shirt or jacket crouched in the window well of a basement window at some point between 8 pm and 9 pm One of the girls, who lives in the home and was, at the time, in her bedroom with her fellow witness and little brother, told the court the man had his hands down his pants and “looked like he was masturbating.”

“His hands were in his pants and they were moving. He was probably masturbating,” the girl said during her initial statement to police. “It made me think, ‘how did he know which window and what house.’ Maybe he’s been here before because I have a bad habit of keeping my blinds open.”

After noticing the man in the window, the girl said she screamed. Both teens said they immediately ran upstairs to tell the parents. While the mom called police, the father immediately ran into the home’s backyard to confront the man, both girls testified.

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In his testimony, the father told the court he saw someone wearing a high-visibility construction shirt or jacket running around the corner of the house. He said he ran back through the house, grabbed a driveway ice-scraper for protection and ran out the front door to confront that person. After briefly coming inside to change into boots, the father ran down the street and around the corner, he told the court, where he said he saw a man wearing the same construction shirt or jacket on the sidewalk roughly 100 meters ahead of him.

“I noticed a man in a high-vis shirt, so I shouted, ‘Hey,’ to which he immediately started to run away from me,” the father said.

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The man said he sprinted along the sidewalk in pursuit before following him through a backyard.

“He fell a few times and then he got up and proceeded,” the father said.

Despite not having his smartphone, the father continued to chase the man – first running before slowing to a walk to keep pace while also attempting to flag down passersby and nearby residents to call police.

“I asked him what he was doing at my house, why he was looking in my daughter’s window,” the father said. “I swore at him, told him to never come back to my house and stay away from my kids and my family. …For the most part, he didn’t say anything back. There was, I think, two or three occasions where he told me to leave him alone.”

The father said he followed the man to Stratford General Hospital and through his first set of doors at the main entrance before the man discovered the second set of doors was locked. As the man tried to push past the father to get back out to the hospital parking lot, the father blocked his escape and the two ended up in a fist fight, the father testified.

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As they fought, the pair moved toward a paramedic who was near the hospital’s ambulance parking, the father testified, so the father asked them to call police for help. It was at that time, the father said, that he noticed the man, who wasn’t wearing any shoes, was leaving behind bloody footprints in the snow.

After the paramedic called police, the father spoke the man moved in the direction of the emergency department entrance and he decided not to follow him further.

Also testifying in court Tuesday, Stratford police Sgt. Joey Otten – one of the officers who eventually arrested Verellen – said he was able to pick up the trail of bloody footprints nearby and followed it south of the hospital campus and through the yards of several homes on West Gore and Woods streets. One of those homes, Otten testified, was Verellen’s parents’ home, which Verellen was prohibited from visiting as part of a probation order.

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After following the trail of prints back and forth through the residential yards, Otten and other Stratford officers found Verellen crouched against a garage. They placed him under arrest, Otten said, before taking him to hospital to have his injured foot assessed and treated.

During the cross-examination of the first three Crown witnesses, defense lawyer Nicholas Wansbutter focused on whether the girls could say with certainty the man in the window was actually masturbating. He also questioned if the teens could positively identify Verellen and if the father knew the man in the window was wearing a high-visibility shirt or jacket before he began the chase.

“I’m suggesting to you … that they never told you about the high-visibility shirt at the time,” Wansbutter said to the father during his cross-examination.

“They did. … In the time that I ran outside when my wife was on the phone with the police, (the girls) also claimed that he was wearing a high-visibility shirt, which I also did see outside when I ran outside in the back yard the first time,” the father responded.

Following day one of his trial, Verellen was remanded into police custody until Dec. 5. During the second day of the trial, the court will hear testimony from additional police witnesses, Costain said, while Wansbutter will make his case on behalf of the defense .

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