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KAMLOOPS THIS WEEK FRIDAY |
BAD DAY IN BLAZERVILLE
Blue and Orange lose Memorial Cup to Kelowna and hockey game to Portland. Blazers return to home ice tonight at 7 p.m. A29
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OCTOBER 5, 2018 | Volume 31 No. 80
VIMY
SIGNING OFF?
Read about Western Canada Theatre’s next play B1
Should campaign signs be banned from public land? A14
Page B2 is your guide to events in the city and region
WEEKEND WEATHER:
Sunny to begin, with clouds at the back end High 14 C Low 3 C
DNA test leads to cold-case charge
BLAZE GUTS HOME
ALLEGED SEXUAL ASSAULT WAS IN 2015
MICHAEL POTESTIO
STAFF REPORTER
TIM PETRUK STAFF REPORTER tim@kamloopsthisweek.com
Two people were taken to hospital following a house fire in Brocklehurst on Wednesday morning. The blaze gutted a home on Paulsen Place, a cul de sac, just before 9 a.m., but all three people who were in the home at the time of the fire managed to escape without major injury. KFR Platoon Capt. Darryl Cooper said two of the residents were taken to hospital for possible smoke inhalation. Fire investigators are still trying to determine what caused the blaze, though Cooper said an owner of the house told firefighters she was smoking a cigarette on the deck at about 7:30 a.m.
A man is behind bars awaiting trial on allegations he sexually assaulted a Kamloops woman in 2015 — a charge that was laid as a result of a positive DNA test years later, a judge has been told. Arlen Mattess, 38, is facing one count of sexual assault. Court heard Mounties making regular patrols found a heavily intoxicated woman on the North Shore on April 22, 2015. She was covered in dirt and struggling to stay on her feet. The woman told officers she had only consumed two drinks and was unsure why she was so drunk, court heard. The woman was arrested for being drunk in public and taken to jail to sober up. While at the Kamloops RCMP detachment, court heard, investigators noticed the woman’s underwear appeared to be on sideways. As a precaution, police transported the woman to Royal Inland Hospital where a sexual assault test turned up foreign bodily fluids. The woman told police she had
michael@kamloopsthisweek.com
See CAUSE, A6
AT NEWSSTANDS
Firefighters spray water on the roof of a backyard deck that saw the worst of the morning blaze that destroyed a Brocklehurst house on Wednesday. DAVE EAGLES/KTW
no recollection of sex and had not been consensually sexually active since an encounter with her boyfriend three days earlier. Earlier this year, a DNA test matched bodily fluids found on the woman to Mattess, court heard, to a probability of six-trillion to one. Court heard the woman, whose identity is protected by a courtordered ban on publication, told police she does not know anyone with the name of the accused. A charge was laid on June 20 and Mattess appeared in Kamloops provincial court on Thursday, where he was denied bail. “The circumstances are very egregious if she was so intoxicated that she has no memory and no capacity to consent,” Kamloops provincial court Judge Stella Frame said in denying Mattess bail. Defence lawyer Alexander Watt said the issue at trial will be consent. Mattess is slated to return to court on Jan. 25 for a preliminary inquiry. Preliminary inquiries are hearings that are held to determine if there is enough evidence to send an accused to trial.
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