There are at least a couple of high-profile trials on the go in Ontario right now. Normally the so-called Tim Bosma case, in which two rich guys are accused of killing a guy more or less for the fun of it, would be dominating the front pages and the airwaves. However, that grisly case is getting next to no coverage, because the media are fixated on the sexual assault trial of former CBC radio presenter Jian Ghomeshi. How fixated? Well, today the Toronto Star devoted its entire local news section to the case, with "Ghomeshi: The First Week" blazoned above a line drawing of the accused sitting in the dock.
There are certain parallels to the ongoing prosecution of Bill Cosby down in Pennsylvania. The accusers who have come forward over the last year or so are all seeking justice for offences allegedly committed at least a decade ago. Although there are suggestions that both men have persisted with their bad behaviour, more recent victims have declined to come forward, supposedly out of fear of getting their private lives dragged through the mud. In the Ghomeshi case, only one of the three complainants has been brave enough to allow her real name to be published.
After five days of wall-to-wall coverage, there are several surprises about the Ghomeshi case, the biggest of which is, why on earth did the Crown bring this prosecution? The two plaintiffs/victims who have testified so far have been shockingly poor on the stand. Both have displayed highly selective memories of the alleged events, and Ghomeshi's formidable (female) counsel has had little trouble in uncovering evidence that the parts they selectively forgot seriously undermined their allegations. Both made strenuous attempts to stay in touch with Ghomeshi after the alleged assaults, a fact which, to judge from the reactions in court, they had not seen fit to mention to the prosecutors.
Another surprise, at least to this non-lawyer, is that Ghomeshi is being tried for sexual assault, because there doesn't seem to have been much sex involved. Ghomeshi has admitted to being into BDSM sexual practices, but that scarcely seems relevant here. As far as we can tell from the evidence presented so far, Ghomeshi started to rough up the women during some fairly tentative necking sessions. If true it's unpleasant and illegal, but you have to wonder if simple assault charges might have been a better option for the Crown to pursue.
The Star's man-hating columnist Heather Mallick is naturally aghast at the way things are going, as you can read in this column from the Star's special section. Remarkably, Ms Mallick believes that all women are "raised to be nice" and are "people-pleasers", facts which in her mind explain why Ghomeshi's victims didn't run a mile at the first raised fist, but instead tried to prolong the relationship. Her solution: specialized sexual assault courts, staffed with judges with training in the psychology of sexual assault. How stacking the deck like that could ever be squared with the legal presumption of innocence is something she doesn't go into. Very likely, she doesn't care.
One thing I'll agree with Ms Mallick on, however: if the Ghomeshi trial goes the way that now seems inevitable, it will be exponentially harder in future for any woman to get a fair hearing in similar cases. That's something the prosecutors should have thought very hard about before launching this flimsy and ill-prepared case.
No comments:
Post a Comment