Copperbelt MLA Haakon Arntzen denied the criminal allegations made against him when he took the stand in Yukon Supreme Court on Thursday.

The 58-year-old politician is facing four charges of indecent assault against two females. The incidents are alleged to have happened between 1972 and 1980.

The trial got underway Monday with Justice Leigh Gower presiding. A publication ban protects the identities of the complainants.

On Thursday morning, each time defence counsel Ed Horembala questioned Arntzen on whether an alleged incident of indecent assault had occurred, Arntzen responded that it hadn't.

Again, when Crown prosecutor John Phelps asked about each incident during cross-examination in the afternoon, Arntzen replied that the allegations aren't true.

One complainant, now 41, told the court when she was about eight or nine years old, she was at a gathering where she had hidden in a basement.

Arntzen found her. He pulled the nightgown she was wearing up around her neck and touched her, court was told. She said his hands were 'all over' her.

Arntzen told the court he knew the girl had a tendency to sleepwalk.

She also told the court of a number of other incidents that allegedly occurred over the years. He'd grind his groin against her and at times French-kiss her, she said.

The other complainant testified the incident against her happened when she was around the age of 16.

Now 45, she said at the time she had been sleeping, but woke up feeling a hand on her breast. She glanced up and saw Arntzen's face. When she tried to move to scare him away, his hand remained on her body, she told the court.

Throughout the cross-examination, Phelps premised many questions with 'Isn't it true that ...?' He would then describe the incidents the complainants testified about, such as French-kissing or grinding his groin against the woman.

Arntzen continually said the allegations aren't true.

'No, I did not,' he stated in answering many of Phelps' questions.

Arntzen described his relationship with one of the complainants as 'turbulent' when she was younger, but said it became more positive when she was an adult. That was in more recent years.

Phelps recalled a suicide attempt by one of the complainants where Arntzen testified he had driven her to Whitehorse General Hospital for medical attention. He asked if the accused denies the complainant blamed it on him.

'Yes, I do,' Arntzen said.

He said when the complainant was older, he helped her get a job at one point.

Another time, he took over a lease she and a roommate had on an apartment, with him living there for two weeks before she moved out, he said.

They also went to dinner or brunch at times, Arntzen said.

During his testimony, many of the Crown witnesses, including the two complainants, sat in the courtroom.

Prior to Arntzen taking the stand on Thursday, the court heard that the original handwritten notes taken at three meetings between the complainants and their territorial victim services workers had been destroyed.

The two victim services workers told the court the meetings were held as part of a process in assisting the women to feel more supported and validated in their feelings.

There was no discussion about the circumstances of the cases, one of the victim services workers said.

'We had cautioned them about that,' one of the workers said, adding though there hadn't been any decision made on proceeding with criminal charges at that point, the workers knew it could be a possibility.

Though notes were taken by one of the workers, she testified it's common practice for the handwritten notes to be shredded immediately after she enters a document in a file on the computer that gives her a sense of what happened at the meeting.

Because she's there primarily to listen to victims, she said her notes are mainly what she felt was important at the meeting.

'Not everything is in the notes,' she said under cross-examination by Horembala.

After the first meeting, the victim services workers were advised it may not be a good idea for the meetings of the four to continue.

It wasn't until the second meeting that one of the victim services workers had learned the first complainant had made a statement to the RCMP.

A third session was held to let the two women know the meetings would be shut down, she told the court.

Closing arguments were to be heard this morning.

Arntzen was elected as a Yukon Party MLA in the November 2002 election.

Shortly after the charges were laid in 2004, he left that party's caucus to sit as an independent across from the government in the legislature.