Copperbelt MLA Haakon Arntzen's lawyer questioned a complainant's evidence Tuesday while cross-examining the woman during Arntzen's indecent assault trial.

The judge-alone trial, which began in Yukon Supreme Court on Monday, is continuing this week with Justice Leigh Gower hearing the case.

Arntzen is facing four charges of indecent assault against two females between 1972 and 1980. Their identities are protected by a publication ban.

On Monday, one of the two women testified, with the cross-examination getting underway Tuesday.

Ed Horembala, Arntzen's lawyer, proposed that incidents she testified about may not have even occurred.

He suggested the first incident she remembered didn't happen at all, and that she wasn't being truthful. He added the complainant may have been sleepwalking and thought it had happened.

'It did (happen),' the 41-year-old woman replied just before asking for a short break.

On Monday, she told the court when she was about eight or nine years old, she was at a gathering where she had hid in the basement. Arntzen pulled the nightgown she was wearing up around her neck and touched her, she testified.

Under cross-examination, Horembala pointed to her testimony that the basement had a concrete wall and floor.

He asked, when a person came down the stairs to the basement, if it was possible to see the entire basement.

She said that it was, but that there were items she could hide behind.

She was by some boxes when Arntzen approached her, she said.

When Horembala questioned why she didn't scream during the incident, she replied: 'What would be the point?' adding with loud music playing, no one would have heard her.

Under further questioning, the woman stood by her testimony that incidents she said had occurred in later years had happened.

She said during testimony there were occasions in later years where Arntzen had touched her inappropriately.

Horembala suggested there would have been other people who had seen it. He also pointed to evidence that she chose to have contact with him as an adult.

He also noted another instance where the woman testified she had been sharing a bed with another girl sometime between the ages of 11 and 13. She said she awoke to the other girl squirming in the bed, with Arntzen in the room.

Though she had speculated in RCMP statements that Arntzen was wearing a bathrobe or underwear during the incident, under continual questing by Horembala, she said she didn't know what Arntzen was wearing.

Horembala pointed to evidence where the woman had said she was half-asleep at the time.

'Just because I'm half-asleep doesn't mean it didn't happen,' she said.

Horembala also brought up her past, pointing to her high school history.

'It seems like I'm on trial here,' she told the court.

Later in the day, the other woman who had been in the bed took the stand. The second complainant, now 45, said she was around 16 when the incident happened.

She said she had woken up to feel something on her breast. Opening her eyes, she said, she saw Arntzen's face.

She testified that she pretended to be asleep and tried to move, thinking that when she did, he would get scared and move his hand away.

'When I moved, his hand didn't move,' she testified.

She said she could feel his hand later moving down toward her belly.

She heard the other girl ask what he was doing and tell him to f--k off, with Arntzen replying in a whispered tone, 'Shh, it's OK.'

The girl then repeated Arntzen should leave her alone. He then left, the older complainant told the court.

The woman said she and the younger girl didn't discuss the incident after that.

'She was a very young girl at that time,' she said.

Though she had disclosed the information to another person, Arntzen denied it.

'Haakon was denying everything,' she said.

Though she had contact with Arntzen after that happened, she said, she made sure she was never in the same room alone with him and also ensured her clothing covered her well.

The trial continued this morning, with cross-examination of the older complainant beginning.

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

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