WARNING: This story details allegations of domestic violence.
Niagara Falls, Ont., Coun. Mike Strange has been found not guilty of domestic assault, a judge in St. Catharines has decided.
“I find the Crown has not proven the charge against you beyond reasonable doubt,” Justice Stephen Darroch with the Ontario Court of Justice said in his decision Wednesday afternoon. “I remain in a state of doubt about Strange’s guilt.”
Darroch said he had concerns about the reliability of the complainant’s account, that she could not recall the progress of events and had significant gaps in her recollection. He said that he doesn’t reject Strange’s ex-partner’s account or think that she invented it, however.
After the decision was rendered, friends and supporters of Strange gave him a hug inside the courtroom.
The trial began Tuesday, with Strange pleading not guilty before the Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines. He was first elected to city council in 2014, after representing Canada as a light-welterweight boxer in three Olympics.
Niagara Regional Police Service charged Strange in May 2025 after officers responded to a 911 call at the home he lived in with his common-law partner of 13 years and reported finding a woman with injuries.
In the witness box Tuesday, Susie Mowers testified that she and Strange had been drinking at a Falls Hose Brigade Cinco de Mayo event on May 2, and after taking a ride-share home early the next morning, they began arguing over an affair she said he had the previous year.
According to Mowers, he pushed her off their bed, and she fell onto the floor and tried to get up, but was repeatedly “knocked back down to the ground.” She said Strange punched her as she was lying on her back on a dog bed, guarding her face with her forearms.
In response to questions from Crown lawyer Nick Hegedus, Mowers detailed injuries she said Strange inflicted on her. She said she was left bleeding “profusely” and had a bloody nose, a bald spot on the top of her head from Strange pulling her by the hair, a gash on her upper lip and bruises on her left jaw and hip.
Earlier Wednesday, Strange testified saying he “never” attacked his former partner and that she was actually the one hitting him.
Strange said he “didn’t touch her” as he presented a contrary version of events in which he said his common-law spouse was “going crazy,” due to an argument and fell into a dresser.
In Strange’s telling, he was trying to sleep when Mowers brought up his infidelity, which she had learned about about a year prior. He said he told her she had a drinking problem and made a comment about it affecting her relationships with family, which really upset her.
Strange testified she “started punching” at him while he was sleeping, and that the motion of her coming to him made them fall off the bed, tangled in their blankets.
After both were up from the fall, he said she was “chasing [him] around the bed” and “throwing big swings.”
“She was swinging so hard,” he said, that she allegedly collided onto the dresser.
Strange said Mowers “was not bleeding” when he decided to leave and stay at his friend’s.
While walking there, Strange said, he saw police driving to his house, realized Mowers must have called 911, ultimately surrendering himself.
Strange said that when he spoke with first responders who came to his home after the incident, they told him, “your wife is bleeding everywhere.”
He testified “if she was bleeding, [he] wouldn’t have left.”
During cross-examination, defence lawyer Michael DelGobbo questioned the extent of the complainant’s injuries, suggesting she’d have had greater injuries than those visible in police photos if Strange had attacked her.
Hegedus showed the court police photos of Mowers with spots of blood around her lips and a streak down her chin. She said paramedics cleaned her up before taking the pictures, saying there was more blood beforehand.
Two Niagara regional police officers who responded to Mowers’s 911 call testified Tuesday, saying they found Mowers with “blood dripping onto her chest,” hands and areas of her lower half.
Called by the defence Tuesday, a Niagara Emergency Services (EMS) paramedic who responded said Mowers had a “small laceration” under her chin, with a streak of blood.
He said she denied head or neck pain, was able to turn head and neck, and did not report feeling dizzy. The paramedic also said he asked Mowers how she was hit more than once, but she said she didn’t know because she had been drinking.
Strange’s defence lawyer questioned Mowers extensively on Tuesday about her drinking the night of the alleged assault, noting that she said she couldn’t remember some of what happened that night. He blamed that on her drinking, with Mowers saying her memory gaps were in part because of alcohol, but also because she was in shock and concussed.
Strange said he had seen Mowers blackout while drinking, “probably a hundred times.”
During cross-examination, Strange said drinking had not affected his memory and suggested he had a clear recollection of events, something Hegedus questioned, noting the defendant said he had multiple drinks over the four hours before the incident.
“Five beers and a couple shots is not a lot,” Strange said.
Hegedus said due to the alcohol and frenzied scene he described, Strange should be incapable of providing a “blow-by-blow account” of the incident in the couple’s bedroom.
Strange said he disagreed.
While answering questions from his defence lawyer, Strange suggested that if he — a one-time internationally competitive boxer — had really tried to hurt someone, their injuries would have been more severe than those visible on Mowers in police photos.
Hegedus pressed Strange on that, asking, “There’s no way you would commit an assault using slightly less force than the most you could possibly use?”
“I guess,” Strange said, adding that even if he could, he didn’t think a punch would cause the injuries in the photos.
“Your teeth, your whole mouth would be exploded,” Strange said.
In his closing argument, Hegedus, the Crown lawyer, said the defendant’s refusal to admit he could punch with less than full force, and insistence on the quality of his memory, belied common sense and “undermines his credibility.”
He said Mowers was honest about what she could and could not remember, and should not be expected to have perfect recall of the alleged assault.
A claimant doesn’t need perfect recall, DelGobbo said in his closing argument, but they should have the main points down.
“‘I cannot remember’ was the hallmark of her evidence,” he said, arguing Mowers’ intoxication, paired with her anger over Strange’s affair made it so “the evidence of the complainant was not credible or reliable.”
Supporters for both the defendant and complainant were in court Tuesday and Wednesday, with over a dozen people present both days. Some shook Strange’s hand as they waited for the trial to begin and walked out the courtroom by his side. Mowers, meanwhile, and some of her supporters were in another room, as a witness exclusion order meant she had to be in a separate room when not testifying.
Strange’s trial was before Justice Darroch alone. Darroch said Wednesday he found the complainant was unsure about how the argument started, how things turned physical and could not recall or deny some events happening such as Strange’s comment about her drinking and her applying force to him.
Darroch also found concerns with the reliability of her account due to alcohol consumption, and that fear and trauma may have impacted her recollection of events.
He also found the observed injuries inconsistent with Mowers’ account.
If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911. If you’re affected by family or intimate partner violence, you can look for help through crisis lines and local support services.
