Ex-teacher’s voyeurism trial underway

Moriarty accused of recording women in bathroom stalls at paddling club

The commodore of Abenaki Aquatic Club in Dartmouth says she was in disbelief and shock last July after another member of the board of directors informed her that someone believed they had just been recorded in a bathroom stall by Matthew Moriarty.

“I took a deep breath and I thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’’’ Jennifer Mosher testified Monday as Moriarty went on trial in Dartmouth provincial court on five counts of voyeurism.

The charges against the 42-year-old Cole Harbour man, a former Dartmouth teacher, involve four complainants. Their identities are protected by a publication ban.

The trial is set for four days in front of Judge Jill Hartlen.

Moriarty originally faced a sixth count involving a fifth complainant, but the prosecution announced Monday it was not offering any evidence on that charge, so it was dismissed.

Crown attorney Peter Dostal, who is prosecuting the case with Paul Niefer, said a review of the file led them to conclude there was no realistic prospect of a conviction on that allegation.

Mosher was the Crown’s opening witness. She told the court that after she was approached at the club’s beach by vice-commodore Pam Maclean on July 20, 2023, at about 1 p.m., she wasn’t sure what to do at first.

Moriarty was a member of the club’s board of directors at the time, she said.

Mosher said she “sat on it for a minute” while she tried to figure out a course of action.

She said she decided to move to a higher vantage point on a hill so she could observe Moriarty, who was in a chair looking at his cellphone.

She said she sat a couple of metres behind Moriarty and could see words on his phone but not any images.

Mosher said she returned to her chair at the beach and had a conversation with two other board members, Ashley Constable and Mark Painchaud, about what should be done. She said she knew the club had a duty to report the incident.

She said that when Moriarty got up from his chair and walked towards the clubhouse, Painchaud followed him.

When Painchaud returned, Mosher said he told the others he had seen a pair of shorts on the floor of a bathroom stall occupied by Moriarty but nothing else.

“So, there was nothing alarming about his report?” defence lawyer Jennifer Macdonald asked.

“No, not at that point,” Mosher replied.

She said she went up the hill to observe Moriarty a second time, and again didn’t see anything suspicious.

Mosher said she “wasn’t on high alert” until another club member joined the conversation and said there might have been an incident with a cellphone while she was in the bathroom the day before.

CAME UP WITH PLAN

Mosher said she and that woman came up with a plan to see if they could catch Moriarty in the act. They walked to the clubhouse separately and stood in line for the two-stall bathroom, along with Moriarty.

She said Moriarty entered the bathroom first and went into the left stall, while the woman went into the right stall.

Mosher said she positioned herself so she could see under the stalls. She said Moriarty’s feet were facing the toilet until he turned around and placed a pair of shorts on the floor. She said she had no concerns at that point.

But the woman in the right stall then opened the door, Mosher said, and mouthed the words, “It’s happening.”

Mosher said she looked into the stall and saw a phone inside the mesh lining of the shorts, camera side up, under the partition between the stalls. She said the camera lens was pointed towards the woman’s stall.

She said the battery on her phone was dying, so she used the other woman’s phone to snap a couple of photos of the shorts on the floor. The shorts were dark and had a blue drawstring and were different than the ones Moriarty was wearing, she said.

Mosher said she got the woman to text the photos to her right away.

She said she then went to her car with Maclean and called the Halifax Regional Police non-emergency line to file a report. She said officers responded to the club within minutes and arrested Moriarty.

She said Moriarty had been preparing to leave the club, but she distracted him with small talk until police arrived.

A few minutes later, Mosher said some staff members came up to her and asked if the arrest had anything to do with the bathroom. “They said they had had similar experiences there,” she said.

She said police set up a “triage” in the clubhouse so they could talk to anyone who had information for them. “Everyone was upset,” she said.

When Mosher got home that night, she said she was curious about what type of photos could be taken through the mesh lining of a pair of shorts. She said she used her iphone to experiment with a pair of her husband’s shorts, and the picture was clear.

COMPLAINANT’S TESTIMONY

The woman who went to the bathroom with Mosher also testified Monday. She said she took one photo of the shorts before leaving the stall and handing her phone off to the commodore, who went in and took more pictures.

The complainant said Moriarty appeared “agitated” and was walking faster than usual when he came out of the clubhouse and headed towards his chair at the beach area.

She said Mosher was carrying the dark shorts when he went into the clubhouse but could not recall if they were in his hands when he exited the building.

The complainant said she was in the left bathroom stall with her son the day before when she saw a cellphone on the floor in the other stall. She said the phone was leaned up against a yellow caution sign with the camera aimed towards her stall.

“I thought that was really weird,” she said.

She said she kicked at the phone and Moriarty immediately picked it up. She said Moriarty showed her a small piece of wood and a tool – perhaps a screwdriver – and mentioned he was working on the door of the right stall.