Safeway guard denies asking teen for sexual favours

A former loss prevention officer at an Edmonton Safeway store testified on Wednesday that he never touched the teenage girl he is accused of sexually assaulting.

James Allan Carlson, 37, is on trial for seven charges including sexual assault, extortion, unlawful confinement and kidnapping.

Carlson is accused of holding a 15-year-old girl against her will and asking her to perform sexual acts after she was caught stealing a chocolate bar from the Westmount Safeway in July 2010.

Carlson caught the girl and her friend. The friend's father was called and she was banned from Safeway.

After her friend left, Carlson testified that the teen told him that her father beat her. He said she also showed him a bruise on her arm.

He testified he felt sorry for the girl, who was hysterical and crying, and drove her to school. He denied asking the girl for any sexual favours.

The teen testified on Tuesday that just a couple of weeks before, she had been grounded by her parents for stealing and was terrified of getting in trouble again.

She tried to make a deal with Carlson, offering to clean up the grocery store each day on her lunch break. 

That’s when she claimed Carlson said he’d let her go if she performed sexual favours for him and washed his car while naked. 

She told the jury he forced her into his car, rubbed her leg and made her lift her shirt.

The girl rejected a suggestion from Carlson’s lawyer that she made up the story so she wouldn’t get in trouble with her parents and police.

Closing arguments in the trial will be heard on Thursday morning.