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Heatherington blames police

By OLIVER MOORE
Globe and Mail Update

An Alberta politician whose alleged abduction and assault caused weeks of public speculation broke her silence Monday with a harsh attack on Montana police, saying that she now knows "why the majority of sexual-assault victims never come forward."

Darlene Heatherington stuck firmly to her story, telling a press conference in Lethbridge, Alta., that she had been drugged by a man who offered to help her fix her bicycle. She said that he injected her with various drugs and sexually assaulted her four times.

Ms. Heatherington's disappearance in early May provoked first local and then continent-wide media attention. Her eventual re-appearance at a Las Vegas hotel, her alleged lack of co-operation with police and then her quick flight out of Nevada kept the story alive. But all along, she said Monday, the public has been fed a pack of lies and half-truths.

"In a court of law I can defend myself against these charges, but in the court of public opinion, as I said, I have been judged and found guilty before I've even had the opportunity to exercise my constitutional rights."

She insisted that it was "not true" that she was unco-operative in Las Vegas, saying that she would have been willing to have a rape test in Las Vegas, but that the hospital had insisted that it be done by male staff.

"I asked for a female doctor or a female nurse," she said. "I was told that they didn't have anyone there. I was told that I needed to 'get a grip' and go through the operation."

Eventually, she said, a female nurse did appear to do the exam.

She subsequently flew home to Alberta on a private plane, thinking that she had tidied up all the loose ends in Las Vegas. But before takeoff the pilot was told that Ms. Heatherington would have to land in Great Falls, Mont., to clear up an unspecified border-control issue. This was, she said Monday, a setup that would allow Great Falls police to "interrogate" her.

"I don't believe for a moment that they even heard what I said, that I did not have consensual sex with this person and this I did not go with him willingly," she said angrily. Then, after what she described as several hours of tough questioning, "I finally started telling them what they wanted to hear."

According to Ms. Heatherington, the false statements she made to Great Falls police ? while overwrought, exhausted and separated from her husband ? were the basis of charges in both Montana and Alberta. (Ms. Heatherington avoided prosecution on the Great Falls charge of lying to police. She was also charged last week with falsely telling police in Lethbridge that she had been stalked.)

"They wanted to hear me say that I had an affair. They wanted to hear me say that I had planned it. They wanted me to say that it was all made up, including the situation that I am facing here in Lethbridge," she explained. "After 2½ hours, I just told them what they wanted to hear."

During her tearful, hour-long statement to the media Monday, Ms. Heatherington said that the abduction occurred while she was fiddling ineffectually with the gearing of a new mountain bike. A man drove by and offered to help. As she described the scene Monday, she made the "error in judgement" by accepting his offer. She sat in his car and made small-talk while he worked. They exchanged names and talked about what each person did. Eventually, she said, he offered her a drink.

"I accepted an open beverage and then, after a very short period of time, I started to feel unwell. I did not know if it was the heat, or what, but I was becoming very dizzy and nauseous. I asked the man if he could drive me back to my vehicle. As you're all aware, I did not make it back to my vehicle."

She said that she would not describe exactly what she had gone through, but did say that she had been made to do "things that are truly horrible."

"I was held against my will and made to do things that are disturbing," she said. "I am not crazy, I did not make this up."