Canadian judge says teenage sex abuse victim is 'overweight but has a pretty face'

Justice Jean-Paul Braun also suggested the 17-year-old may have been a 'little flattered' by the attention from the 49-year-old taxi driver

Judge called into question whether consent was required to kiss someone, claiming it was 'not the same' as touching someone's body (Getty)

A judge has come under fire after he suggested that a 17-year-old sexual assault victim was "a little overweight but she has a pretty face".

Magistrate Jean-Paul Braun went on to tell the court the Canadian city of Montreal that the teenager may have been a "little flattered" by the attention from 49-year-old Carl Figaro.

The taxi driver was later found guilty of the 2015 sexual assault, according to Le Journal de Montréal, which originally reported the story.

The court had heard that Figaro tried to kiss the teenager, lick her face and grope her as she rode in his taxi.

But Judge Braun questioned whether consent was required to kiss someone and claimed it was "not the same" as touching someone's body.

"I understand he tried to kiss her, that, that is maybe an acceptable gesture," he said. "It is not the same consent to kiss someone as the consent to - as we say - put one's hand in the basket."

His comments sparked an immediate complaint from prosecutor Amélie Rivard who said she had "never seen that distinction in jurisprudence."

She added: "The victim is in a taxi, in a situation of unequal force, and you are asking me if the situation allows a man to kiss this young woman, assuming her consent, I would say no."

Quebec's Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée also called the comments were "unacceptable" and her spokesperson said she filed a complaint to the judicial council.

It is not the first time the justice has been criticised. In 2013, he said a telecom technician's verbal harassment and groping of a 19-year-old was not crime of the century".

The Quebec judicial council said it did not comment on complaints.