What constitutes corroboration in a sexual assault case?

The law as to what may constitute corroboration is set out in Thomas v. The Queen, 1952 CanLII 7 (SCC), [1952] 2 S.C.R. 344, 15 C.R. 1, 103 C.C.C. 193, [1952] 4 D.L.R. 306, per Cartwright J. (as he then was), at p. 8, where he quotes from Rex v. Baskerville, [1916] 2 K.B. 658, 12 Cr. App. R. 81, as follows: “We hold that evidence in corroboration must be independent testimony which affects the accused by connecting or tending to connect him with the crime. In other words, it must be evidence which implicates him, that is, which confirms in some material particular not only the evidence that the crime has been committed, but also that the prisoner committed it. The test applicable to determine the nature and extent of the corroboration is thus the same whether the case falls within the rule of practice at common law or within that class of offences for which corroboration is required by statute. The language of the statute, ‘implicates the accused’, compendiously incorporates the test applicable at common law in the rule of practice. The nature of the corroboration will necessarily vary according to the particular circumstances of the offence charged. It would be in high degree dangerous to attempt to formulate the kind of evidence which would be regarded as corroboration, except to say that corroborative evidence is evidence which shows or tends to show that the story of the accomplice that the accused committed the crime is true, not merely that the crime has been committed, but that it was committed by the accused. “The corroboration need not be direct evidence that the accused committed the crime; it is sufficient if it is merely circumstantial evidence of his connection with the crime.”