Christie Blatchford: Ghomeshi verdict was magnificent, compared to trial by press or social media
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/christ...mpared+trial+press+social/11807569/story.html
It was with a blessed minimum of horse manure and obeisance to cultural politics that Ontario Court Judge William Horkins Thursday acquitted former CBC golden boy Jian Ghomeshi of a raft of historic sexual assault charges.
And Horkins, properly but nonetheless bravely in the current climate, placed the responsibility for the collapse of the case squarely where it belongs – with the three women who were Ghomeshi’s accusers.
As soon as the judge left the courtroom, the 48-year-old former host of Q on CBC radio – it was his firing from that show in October of 2014 which, as Horkins noted, was the background to these women and others coming forward — turned to hug his mother and sister, then wordlessly shook hands one by one with a full row of family and friends.
The sister, Jila, later read a brief statement outside the courthouse before being driven back in by a crush of reporters.
“We are relieved, but not surprised, by the court’s decision today,” she said. “It can only be surprising to those who rushed to judgment before the trial even started and before a single word of evidence (had) been heard.”
She stressed that while others saw the trial “in symbolic terms, what we want to say today is deeply personal … My mother and I love Jian very much.”
It was the first and only hint of the enormous stress the tight-knit family has been under since the charges were laid 17 months ago.
While Horkins acknowledged that “courts must guard against applying false stereotypes concerning the expected conduct of complainants” in sex assault and abuse cases, and said he understood very well that complainants can behave unpredictably and oddly, that wasn’t what happened here.
Instead, as he put it, in an unmistakeable slap to hashtag justice (the #ibelievewomen crowd) and the likes of those who stood with placards outside Old City Hall, “the twists and turns of the complainants’ evidence in this trial illustrate the need to be vigilant in avoiding the equally dangerous false assumption that sexual assault complainants are always truthful.”
Having a pair of breasts, in other words, doesn’t entitle the owner to unquestioned belief.
With their 11th-hour disclosures, shifting recollections and willingness to withhold information, Horkins said, “each complainant was less than full, frank and forthcoming in the information they provided to the media, to the police, to Crown counsel and to this court.”
He found Ghomeshi not guilty of five charges, four of sexual assault and one of choking to overcome resistance to sexual assault. in connection with four incidents that dated back to 2002 -03 and allegedly involved the three women.
Two of them, the complainants the judge identified as L.R. and S.D., are precluded from being named by publication bans.
The third is Trailer Park Boys actor and Royal Canadian Air Force Capt. Lucy DeCoutere, who asked that the ban on her name be lifted and thus became the public face of Ghomeshi’s accusers.
Having a pair of breasts, in other words, doesn’t entitle the owner to unquestioned belief.
L.R. alleged that Ghomeshi had attacked her twice, once when he purportedly pulled her by the hair hard in his car in late 2002, a second time at his house on Jan. 2, 2003, when he allegedly did it again and punched her in the head several times.
But her evidence had real problems: L.R. specifically tied the first assault to Ghomeshi’s endearing bright-yellow Volkswagen Beetle. “The car was significant to her because it contributed to her impression of (Ghomeshi’s) softness, his kindness and generally, that it was safe to be with him,” Horkins said.
But the evidence disclosed, and the judge found as a fact, that Ghomeshi didn’t even have the Beetle until seven months later, meaning “one of L.R.’s clear memories was simply and demonstrably wrong … The impossibility of this memory makes one seriously question, what else might be honestly remembered by her and yet actually be equally wrong?”
In cross-examination, Horkins said, she was “exposed as a witness willing to withhold relevant information from the police, from the Crown and from the court. It is clear that she deliberately breached her oath to tell the truth.”
As for DeCoutere, who failed to disclose that she had wooed Ghomeshi by email for at least a year after he allegedly slapped and choked her in July 2003 — even after she gave police a second statement on the eve of taking the witness stand – the judge said, “It became clear at trial that (she) very deliberately chose not to be completely honest with the police … (she) proceeded to consciously suppress relevant and material information… It indicates a failure to take the oath seriously and a wilful carelessness with the truth.”
As for DeCoutere’s explanation that she always intended to reveal the full story, the judge said she “had literally dozens of pre-trial opportunities to provide the full picture to the authorities.
“I suspect the truth is she simply thought that she might get away with not mentioning it.”
Horkins described an email DeCoutere sent Ghomeshi within 24 hours of the alleged choking incident — in which she wrote, “You kicked my ass last night and that makes me want to f–k your brains out. Tonight.” — this way: “There is not a trace of animosity, regret or offence taken, in that message.”
DeCoutere and the third complainant, S.D., exchanged more than 5,000 messages, many discussing the progress of the charges through the courts.
Their animus to Ghomeshi — “time to sink the pr–k”, “he’s a f–king piece of sh-t”, etc. — then and now, the judge said, was clear and is evidence of their “extreme dedication to bringing down” the man.
The justice system, built as it is by humans, is surely imperfect.
But compared to the alternatives — trial by press or social media in the absence of investigation and sometimes, as with the two Liberal MPs who were driven from Ottawa the same year as Ghomeshi was charged, even a forum for the accused to speak — it is brilliant, occasionally even magnificent, as it was this day.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/christ...mpared+trial+press+social/11807569/story.html
It was with a blessed minimum of horse manure and obeisance to cultural politics that Ontario Court Judge William Horkins Thursday acquitted former CBC golden boy Jian Ghomeshi of a raft of historic sexual assault charges.
And Horkins, properly but nonetheless bravely in the current climate, placed the responsibility for the collapse of the case squarely where it belongs – with the three women who were Ghomeshi’s accusers.
As soon as the judge left the courtroom, the 48-year-old former host of Q on CBC radio – it was his firing from that show in October of 2014 which, as Horkins noted, was the background to these women and others coming forward — turned to hug his mother and sister, then wordlessly shook hands one by one with a full row of family and friends.
The sister, Jila, later read a brief statement outside the courthouse before being driven back in by a crush of reporters.
“We are relieved, but not surprised, by the court’s decision today,” she said. “It can only be surprising to those who rushed to judgment before the trial even started and before a single word of evidence (had) been heard.”
She stressed that while others saw the trial “in symbolic terms, what we want to say today is deeply personal … My mother and I love Jian very much.”
It was the first and only hint of the enormous stress the tight-knit family has been under since the charges were laid 17 months ago.
While Horkins acknowledged that “courts must guard against applying false stereotypes concerning the expected conduct of complainants” in sex assault and abuse cases, and said he understood very well that complainants can behave unpredictably and oddly, that wasn’t what happened here.
Instead, as he put it, in an unmistakeable slap to hashtag justice (the #ibelievewomen crowd) and the likes of those who stood with placards outside Old City Hall, “the twists and turns of the complainants’ evidence in this trial illustrate the need to be vigilant in avoiding the equally dangerous false assumption that sexual assault complainants are always truthful.”
Having a pair of breasts, in other words, doesn’t entitle the owner to unquestioned belief.
With their 11th-hour disclosures, shifting recollections and willingness to withhold information, Horkins said, “each complainant was less than full, frank and forthcoming in the information they provided to the media, to the police, to Crown counsel and to this court.”
He found Ghomeshi not guilty of five charges, four of sexual assault and one of choking to overcome resistance to sexual assault. in connection with four incidents that dated back to 2002 -03 and allegedly involved the three women.
Two of them, the complainants the judge identified as L.R. and S.D., are precluded from being named by publication bans.
The third is Trailer Park Boys actor and Royal Canadian Air Force Capt. Lucy DeCoutere, who asked that the ban on her name be lifted and thus became the public face of Ghomeshi’s accusers.
Having a pair of breasts, in other words, doesn’t entitle the owner to unquestioned belief.
L.R. alleged that Ghomeshi had attacked her twice, once when he purportedly pulled her by the hair hard in his car in late 2002, a second time at his house on Jan. 2, 2003, when he allegedly did it again and punched her in the head several times.
But her evidence had real problems: L.R. specifically tied the first assault to Ghomeshi’s endearing bright-yellow Volkswagen Beetle. “The car was significant to her because it contributed to her impression of (Ghomeshi’s) softness, his kindness and generally, that it was safe to be with him,” Horkins said.
But the evidence disclosed, and the judge found as a fact, that Ghomeshi didn’t even have the Beetle until seven months later, meaning “one of L.R.’s clear memories was simply and demonstrably wrong … The impossibility of this memory makes one seriously question, what else might be honestly remembered by her and yet actually be equally wrong?”
In cross-examination, Horkins said, she was “exposed as a witness willing to withhold relevant information from the police, from the Crown and from the court. It is clear that she deliberately breached her oath to tell the truth.”
As for DeCoutere, who failed to disclose that she had wooed Ghomeshi by email for at least a year after he allegedly slapped and choked her in July 2003 — even after she gave police a second statement on the eve of taking the witness stand – the judge said, “It became clear at trial that (she) very deliberately chose not to be completely honest with the police … (she) proceeded to consciously suppress relevant and material information… It indicates a failure to take the oath seriously and a wilful carelessness with the truth.”
As for DeCoutere’s explanation that she always intended to reveal the full story, the judge said she “had literally dozens of pre-trial opportunities to provide the full picture to the authorities.
“I suspect the truth is she simply thought that she might get away with not mentioning it.”
Horkins described an email DeCoutere sent Ghomeshi within 24 hours of the alleged choking incident — in which she wrote, “You kicked my ass last night and that makes me want to f–k your brains out. Tonight.” — this way: “There is not a trace of animosity, regret or offence taken, in that message.”
DeCoutere and the third complainant, S.D., exchanged more than 5,000 messages, many discussing the progress of the charges through the courts.
Their animus to Ghomeshi — “time to sink the pr–k”, “he’s a f–king piece of sh-t”, etc. — then and now, the judge said, was clear and is evidence of their “extreme dedication to bringing down” the man.
The justice system, built as it is by humans, is surely imperfect.
But compared to the alternatives — trial by press or social media in the absence of investigation and sometimes, as with the two Liberal MPs who were driven from Ottawa the same year as Ghomeshi was charged, even a forum for the accused to speak — it is brilliant, occasionally even magnificent, as it was this day.
