Provincial court Judge Alan Tufts handed down the verdict today in Kentville, N.S., saying he found significant inconsistencies in the testimony of the witnesses.
Hawkes, a high-profile rights activist who officiated at former NDP leader Jack Layton’s state funeral in 2011, had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The charges stem from events in the mid-1970s, when Hawkes was a teacher in his mid-20s in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley.
The trial heard emotional testimony from a middle-age man who said Hawkes led him down a hallway naked during a drunken get-together at his trailer and forced oral sex on him in a bedroom when he was about 16 years old.
But taking the stand in his own defence last November, Hawkes categorically denied the allegations.