An ex-track coach has taken the witness stand to defend himself against claims he molested teen athletes in Edmonton more than 40 years ago.
He now faces counts involving just four complainants, after the Crown declined to call evidence relating to one of the alleged victims.
The complainants, now in their 60s, claim Porter sexually touched them during athletic massages.
One, Chris Dallin, also claims Porter forced oral sex on him when they bunked together in a Saskatoon hotel.
Porter has pleaded not guilty to the charges. On the stand Tuesday, the 75-year-old denied ever sexually touching Dallin.
If any sexual contact did occur during massages, he insisted it was “unintentional.”
Porter, who was fired from the Ottawa Lions track club after an Athletics Canada investigation in 2019, was still giving evidence as of press time.
Claims of inappropriate massages
The first hours of Porter’s examination-in-chief were clinical, with defence lawyer Solomon Friedman asking him to recount his once glittering resume.
Porter began running with the Edmonton Olympic Club as an athlete in 1964. He described a sport that was in its infancy in Canada, with few best practices and fewer professional coaches.
Porter later studied physical education at the University of Alberta, where he completed a bachelor’s degree and began coaching his old club. Among his coaching mentors was Gerard Mach, a Polish sprinter who became Canada’s first national sprints coach. Porter himself later took a job as assistant competition director for track at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and also held organizer positions with the Commonwealth Games.
Mach frequently gave massages to his athletes, which Canadian sprinters rarely received up to that point, Porter said.
“He encouraged me to improve my knowledge (of massage),” Porter said. Porter began giving athletes rubdowns — either before practice to help activate their muscles, or after to help them cool down. Most massages took place in public in the centre of the track or on the bleachers, he said. Some involved under-the-clothes contact.
Porter admitted he was social with athletes. He said he would often have athletes over for dinner parties at his Saskatchewan Drive apartment. He would also eat with team members at restaurants, both alone and in groups.
Several of the complainants said Porter would push alcohol on them at the meals. Porter denied this, but when asked if alcohol was ever consumed at dinners, he replied, “probably,” but insisted it was confined to after competition.
The Dallin allegations
Dallin testified on the first day of trial and applied to lift the mandatory publication ban on his name as a sex abuse complainant. Porter said Dallin was one of the most talented young athletes he coached in his early career. They became close, in part because Dallin was training for the multi-event decathlon.
“I would have spent more time with him than any other individual athlete,” Porter said.
Because of this, Porter kept several small notebooks detailing Dallin’s training and competition schedule. The notebooks were entered as exhibits in the trial and, in the defence’s view, cleared up the date when Porter and Dallin were in Saskatoon for a track meet, where the alleged hotel incident took place.
Porter said based on the notebook, the meet occurred between Christmas and New Year’s 1978.
Porter’s testimony comes after a pair of blows to the Crown case.
Prosecutors declined to call evidence related to one of the complainants — who is himself facing a sexual assault charge in an unrelated case — leading Justice Nicholas Devlin to acquit Porter of those charges.
Devlin also deemed inadmissible evidence from a sixth Crown witness, who was not a complainant but alleged inappropriate behaviour by Porter.
The trial is scheduled to run through the end of the week.