North Okanagan equestrian whose horse was sexually abused reassured now that suspect has been identified

A North Okanagan woman whose horse was sexually abused over the weekend says she has some reassurance now that the suspect has been identified.

Abigail Equestrian owner Erica Van Meenen told iNFOnews.ca she’s been in a haze since her surveillance camera captured the suspect with her horses in the early hours of Jan. 24.

“He fully raped her, and it was all caught on video surveillance,” Van Meenen said.

The equestrian coach said she’d been in shock and felt physically nauseous since the event.

“It’s just so disturbing and really traumatizing, and I’m not the type of person who throws that word around,” she said.

Van Meenen said the video surveillance captured a man in the pen with the horses at about 1 a.m. Jan. 24. 

Reviewing the footage found that he’d had sex with one of her horses. Van Meenen said he’d found a step stool on the property and used it to access the horse. 

“She did try to get away from him multiple times, and he just kept following her around,” Van Meenen said. “The average person knows enough that you don’t go behind a horse… this guy was very comfortable around the horses and around their hind ends.”

Van Meenen has been around horses her entire life and worked professionally with them for almost 25 years and said she’d never, “not once,” ever heard of someone having sex with a horse. 

She said no one she knows in the BC equestrian industry has ever experienced such a thing, but a friend from the UK contacted her about a recent case in Wales.

Van Meenen said everyone in the equestrian world is horrified about what happened.

She also believes that the suspect may have tampered with two of her other horses.

Luckily, she said the horse is OK.

“Emotionally and mentally, they will be fine because they don’t understand how traumatic this is. They don’t hold that type of emotion,” she said.

The same can’t be said for Van Meenen, who reiterated the shock she’s been in since the incident.

According to Vernon North Okanagan RCMP, a police dog was used to search for the suspect and an extensive search was conducted, but the man wasn’t found.

However, following CCTV footage widely shared on social media, the RCMP said Jan. 26 that it had identified a suspect.

It’s some peace of mind for Van Meenen.

She said several people had reached out to her, identifying the suspect

“Hopefully they’re able to prosecute him to the full extent of the law,” she said.