Warning: This article contains allegations of sexual assault involving a minor. Anyone who is at risk of sexual violence or has experienced sexual violence can call the Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis 24-hour helpline at 1-800-265-7233.
GUELPH – The trial for a Puslinch man who pleaded not guilty to sexual assault and gross indecency charges is set to continue at least until July.
The charges are connected to multiple incidents between 1986 and 1991 involving two victims.
One of these victims, Kristin Bax, concluded her testimony on March 20. It included hours of cross-examination stretching over multiple days.
Bax is a 53-year-old interior designer and business owner with two adult children and four grandchildren.
Her final day of testimony was a tearful one, with Bax pausing frequently to take a deep breath and dab tears with a tissue, a few wisps of wavy blonde hair framing her face.
“This is pretty traumatic,” Bax said, noting she’d hardly slept since the trial began the previous week.
“I’m struggling with emotions and the trauma of the whole situation.”
Bax testified via CCTV from a room adjacent to the courtroom at the Ontario Court of Justice in Guelph. A support person from the The Victim/Witness Assistance Program sat by her side.
The accused, Brian Edward Cox, a tall, heavyset man with broad shoulders and balding grey hair, sat quietly while his lawyer, Dean Paquette, questioned Bax.
Behind Cox were five people, appearing to include his wife and some of their adult children.
On the other side of the courtroom about a dozen people gathered in support of Bax, including her daughter, Cassy Reid, and former members of a nameless church sometimes referred to as Two by Two (2×2), of which Bax was a member until last year.
Cox’s trial is one of many across the world involving Two by Two church members, most involving sexual assault of minors.
Reid told the Advertiser her mom “did not allow any of what happened to her in her young life stop her from becoming an incredible mother and working hard for success.”
In the back of the courtroom sat OPP investigator Christine Millson, who took Bax’s initial statement in October 2023.
Paquette highlighted discrepancies between Bax’s statement to Millson and her testimony during the trial.
Bax said she didn’t initially include every detail because she did not expect the police report to lead to her testifying about Cox.
She was there to report something else, and said she was told by a police clerk that she “could not report regarding Mr. Cox because the first incident happened in Montreal,” so she needed to report to Montreal police.
“I was under the understanding I would only be able to speak about the other case, not Mr. Cox. I wasn’t prepared to bring up Mr. Cox,” Bax said.
“I was asked what happened when I left my parents’ home … and it led into talking about Mr. Cox.”
Bax said she terminated three pregnancies as a result of Cox raping her, initially testifying the abortions all took place between November 1987 and February 1988, when she was 15 years old and Cox was 31.
Paquette expressed doubt about the timeline, and Bax admitted to a mistake.
“There’s no human way there would have been three of them between November and February,” she testified.
However, Bax said “there was definitely one before I turned 16, and two more before I quit working for [Cox]” in the spring or summer of 1988.
“You are struggling with the timeline for everything, are you not?” Paquette asked.
“Well, 30-some years later and through all the trauma I lived through in my life it would be physically impossible for my brain to know every date,” Bax said.
“I don’t know the exact days, I don’t know the exact months, but I do know pretty much my timelines.”
Bax said she began working for Cox through a co-op program set up as soon as she enrolled at John F. Ross Collegiate Vocational Institute in November 1987.
“Mr. Cox is who registered me at John F. Ross school,” Bax testified.
“Mr. Cox is who I was working for (and) Mr. Cox is who took guardianship of me” after her brother removed her from her parents’ home, she said.
Paquette suggested Bax started working for Cox in January 1988 and it was her brother who registered her at school.
“[Cox] knew the violent situation I had been taken out of in my parents’ home and was taking advantage,” Bax said, to which Paquette responded, “Now you are just making stuff up.”
While choking back tears, Bax said “my life had been so traumatic before I came into the life of Mr. Cox and I had finally learned how to survive.
“Coming into the custody of Mr. Cox it started all again and I had no idea how to defend or speak for myself. I did what I was told.”
Paquette repeatedly suggested the relationship between Bax and Cox was consensual.
“He was my boss. He was my father role. I had to do what he said,” Bax said.
Paquette questioned Bax at length about why Cox was invited to Bax’s wedding in 1990, and Bax testified she and her husband were not allowed to choose who was invited – that was in her parents’ control.
Bax said in the early ‘90s she told leaders within her church community about Cox sexually assaulting her, because she found out he intended to adopt children from another country and she was concerned for their safety.
Bax testified she did not press charges at that time because her minister forbid it.
“We were silenced. We were told we had to follow the Bible and the Bible said not to take people to court,” Bax testified.
Paquette noted Bax’s former church is “somewhat notorious for bad conduct,” and Bax testified that is “very true.”
In May 2023, Bax said she watched a presentation via Zoom along with hundreds of other Two by Two worshippers about recognizing abuse.
It included information about grooming, which Bax said gave her words for some of Cox’s behaviour.
For example, Bax testified that every time Cox took her to get an abortion he would purchase an extravagant and expensive gift: a fur coat, a red leather jacket and a designer watch.
Paquette suggested the church presentation put the idea in Bax’s mind that she had been mistreated by Cox. “Absolutely not,” Bax testified.
In the earlier days of her testimony, Bax shared details of three different incidents when she said Cox sexually assaulted her: in a Montreal hotel room, on a train and in the garage at his Puslinch home.
Paquette asked for details of additional incidents.
“I don’t feel this is fair to a trauma victim to expect them to realize every situation, every date, every action that’s happened when it happened pretty much every single day,” Bax said.
She testified she has “horrific” reoccurring nightmares about memories of Cox assaulting her.
“How do you know you haven’t conflated your dreams with [reality]?” Paquette asked her.
“Perhaps you are dreaming the same thing because it is in your head but not real.”
Cases involving sexual assault typically include bans on publishing details that identify victims or witnesses, but the publication ban on this trial was redacted.
Bax said removing the publication ban was important to her in case other people want to come forward after hearing her story.
Paquette told Bax she wanted the publication ban lifted “so you could have a broader audience for your complaints.”
“In fact, you see this as a bit of a cause, that fair?
“You’re going to make the world know about what Mr. Cox did to you,” he suggested.
The next dates for Cox’s trial are scheduled for May, July and September, though Justice Matthew Stanley expressed hope the September date would not be necessary.
The trial will include testimony from another victim and from Cox.
