Crown suggests Peter Nygard gave inconsistent statements to police, in court testimony

Disgraced fashion mogul Peter Nygard was pressed by a Crown attorney Wednesday to explain several purported inconsistencies between the testimony he gave on the stand last week during his Toronto sex assault trial and the account he gave to police during an 11-hour interview years ago.

The 82-year-old founder of Nygard International has pleaded not guilty to five counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement in connection with alleged incidents dating back to the 1980s. Multiple complainants in the trial have alleged they were taken to Nygard's Toronto headquarters, under pretenses ranging from tours to job interviews, before being sexually assaulted by the businessman. 

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During Wednesday’s cross-examination, Crown lawyer Neville Golwalla suggested there were several inconsistencies between Nygard’s initial 11-hour police interview conducted in October 2021, and his testimony in court last week.

In one example, Golwalla said that Nygard initially told a Toronto detective that he did not recall going to a Gatineau, Que., club where he met one of the alleged victims in the late 1980s.

The attorney suggested Nygard agreed he’d been to the club once the detective showed him a photo, but Nygard argued that the photo simply helped refresh his memory.

Next, Golwalla asked Nygard whether he had ever distributed Plan B pills to anyone at his Toronto property. During one complainant’s testimony last week, it was said that, after she was sexually assaulted at Nygard’s Toronto headquarters, another woman gave her Plan B on her way out.

Last week, Nygard told the court that he never gave anyone Plan B in the early 2000s, but that he may have done so once it became “legal.” On Wednesday, he said he believed that might have been around 2008 or 2010, before Golwalla corrected him, informing him it became legal in 2005.

“I have to accept that but … I did not know that at the time,” Nygard replied.

The Crown then moved on to a line of questioning regarding a Rolling Stones concert, held at the then-SkyDome in Toronto in December 1989. It was this event that one of the complainants said Nygard invited her to before taking her to his office and allegedly attacking her.

On Wednesday, Nygard said he’d never been to the SkyDome “in his life” and denied inviting the woman.

The Crown pointed back to Nygard’s police interview, during which he had said, “Whatever it is, if there was a big show in town, we would go.” To that, Nygard told the court he did not consider the Rolling Stones “a big show” and therefore both statements could be true.

Golwalla then asked about the company's Toronto headquarters, located at 1 Niagara Street near the city’s waterfront, where Nygard is accused of constructing a secret bedroom within the walls in which the alleged sexual assaults have been said to have occurred.

The Crown attorney confirmed with Nygard that the door to the private room was mirrored on both sides and that it could only be locked or unlocked from the inside. The Crown also identified a number of additional mirrors within the room.

In his testimony, Nygard said the room was outfitted to lock from the inside in an effort to keep confidential documents secure.

In his testimony last week, Nygard identified the keypad code needed to enter the area leading to the private bedroom as ‘1234.’ However, when asked about that code on Wednesday, he gave a different account, stating he didn’t believe that code was secure enough to be used for that room.

“If you really had important documents in there, then a simple code like ‘1234’ is probably a failing strategy,” Golwalla said.

While Nygard said he did often use ‘1234’ as a passcode, he agreed with Golwalla, adding “That’s definitely not the right strategy.”

“It’s so simple,” he said.

“But you told us [...] last week you said it was the code you used,” the Crown’s lawyer responded.

Nygard maintained that he couldn’t remember which door used which code and underlined that they were changed often for security reasons. He said ‘1234’ may have been the code to the facility’s front door, instead.

Last week, Nygard testified that he was honest with detectives during the October 2021 interview, as he had “nothing to hide.”

The Crown’s cross-examination will continue on Thursday at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto.