No-contact order against Johnson’s billet and surety removed

Windsor Spitfire Ben Johnson is now allowed to communicate with surety and billet Frances Vernes after his lawyer and counsel for the Crown agreed to remove her from a long list of no-contact orders.

Johnson, 18, was charged after a 16-year-old girl told police she was sexually assaulted in the washroom of Mynt nightclub early Monday morning. A second woman, age 20, then came forward to say she had been sexually assaulted in another bar washroom three weeks earlier, police said.

Johnson was released on bail Tuesday. Vernes and his other surety, team physical therapist William Joseph Garland, accompanied Johnson to court Wednesday morning to get the non-contact order against Vernes removed.

Johnson is still forbidden from contacting 16 people and is also bound by a weapons prohibition and an order to abstain from alcohol.

His case will be spoken to in court on April 16.

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