Victim of alleged sexual assault suing St. FX University

A woman who says she was sexually assaulted by a St. FX football player has launched a civil lawsuit against the Nova Scotia university.

The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, is one of four women who accuse Omogbolahan (Teddy) Jegede of assaulting them while they were all students at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S.

The lawsuit, filed in Nova Scotia Supreme Court this week, alleges St. FX failed to properly perform its duties to oversee the care, control and protection of students. The lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages.

In a statement released after the lawsuit was filed, the woman said, "the trauma from a sexual assault is devastating." She said learning that St. FX had received other complaints about the player, who was living on campus, but "failed to protect the St. FX community is re-victimizing."

The woman said she has transferred out of St. FX to complete her university education, ending a family tradition that goes back three generations.

Allegations

None of the allegations in the civil lawsuit have yet been tested in court. Jegede was charged in April with four counts of sexual assault. Those allegations have also not been tested in court.

The statement says that in January 2020, a female student went to the university administration and the RCMP, alleging she had been sexually assaulted by Jegede.

The suit alleges one of the other women was sexually assaulted in 2021 and three other women were assaulted in February 2023. The woman behind the lawsuit alleges she was sexually assaulted following an on-campus party in September 2022.

Her lawyer, Liam O'Reilly, said she came forward when she learned she was not the first alleged victim.

"She learned that there had been previous complaints and previous issues, and her concern was that there would be further and additional survivors, and she feared for the protection of not only herself and the other survivors but also the St. F.X. student body generally."

Other cases

O'Reilly said a fifth woman, identified in the lawsuit as "Student E," was one of the women allegedly assaulted in February of last year, but that person has not laid a criminal complaint.

"Our view is that St. FX has failed to take a pro-active approach, survivor-centred and trauma-informed approach," O'Reilly said Wednesday. "They have a history of maybe not living up to those standards and this seems to be repeating itself once more."

O'Reilly was referring to a case from 2017 in which two St. FX football players were accused of sexually assaulting another student. They were subsequently acquitted. But there have been protests about how the university has handled cases like these. In 2021, St. FX implemented a new policy for dealing with sexual assaults

"Sexual violence on Canadian university campuses is rampant," the woman behind the lawsuit said in her statement.

"Universities, including St. FX, need to protect their communities by taking a proactive approach to stop sexual violence. Universities who fail to take a proactive approach are complicit in on-campus sexual violence."

A spokesperson for St. FX said in a statement that the university has no knowledge of the lawsuit and so could not comment.