I have mixed emotions about the Jian Ghomeshi trial verdict. I have mixed emotions because I’m a victim of sexual assault.
When I was a small child, I was abused sexually.
At six years old, I was taken into a courthouse to tell them exactly how this man’s actions had made me feel. I’ve been on the other side of that situation. I was subjected to abuse and the process of a trial.
The man who abused me was charged and convicted and served six months house arrest.
Six months and house arrest.
Going forward in life, I learned the harsh lesson that even the people who are meant to protect you, sometimees don’t. You need to protect yourself. I do that every day and that’s a jaded perspective, I know. But, I’m always one step ahead.
So when it happened in my third year of university, I didn’t even go near a police station. I feared history would repeat itself.
Ghomeshi will face the rest of his life viewed as someone who has assaulted women. But he was acquitted and these women will spend the rest of their lives feeling failed by a system that’s designed to protect them.
During the trial, as each one of these women were torn down by Ghomeshi’s lawyer, I cringed. My stomach became uneasy. The world was spinning. I found myself screaming.
I found myself watching a victim being attacked all over again.
Why are we still victim blaming? We talk about making leaps forward, but this feels like a step backward, a huge step backward.
Let’s look at the evidence. In the testimony, there were inconsistencies between what she gave to police and what she said in court six months later.
Six months is a long time folks, in six months memories can be tainted and details can be lost. Details like what kind of vehicle she was in when a person attacked her.
Traumatic events are jolting. Cognitive psychology gives suggestions to how someone can misremember something traumatic.
It’s very hard to understand something when you aren’t given all the evidence or aren’t educated on psychological explanations.
Then we look at “hair extension inconsistencies.” Really? I certainly do not remember what I was or wasn’t wearing the evening of my attack. Certainly this was not, in my opinion, enough to warrant reasonable doubt.
Lawyers are paid to tear apart witness testimony and win their clients’ cases. But this seemed like overreaching.
Then there’s the email sent to Ghomeshi from Lucy DeCoutere, one of the alleged victims. Emails are more concrete. Small pieces of evidence make sense when it comes to casting a reasonable doubt in a victim’s testimony. Those are solid pieces of evidence pointing towards consensual acts.
When a victim comes forward, it is important to understand those small pieces of evidence, the ones the victim cannot quite remember, are not enough to cast reasonable doubt.
A victim coming forward takes courage, strength and the ability to understand that their very character will be called into question.
There is no doubt in my mind that Ghomeshi deserved his defense. But so do these victims. It’s hard to piece together the details and I’m sure it was especially difficult for the judge.
But, losing this battle says more about society and the justice system than Ghomeshi himself.
I think the bigger question to me is how can victims be confident in a system they feel has failed them countless times? You can counsel me until I’m blue in the face, but it won’t fix the past. It won’t fix that I feel I’ve been failed. It won’t stop my fear that people are free to hurt others.
I’m sorry to everyone who’s been hurt. I’m sorry to all the victims whose character will continue being called into question.
