NEWS
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
3
Ghomeshi Gate:
Let the Complainant-Whacking Commence
Correction: This article was intended for publication in Volume 89, Issue 4.
esther mendelsohn › staff writer
O
n 2 O c tobe r 201 5, Jian Ghomeshi,
flanked by his lawyers and surrounded
by police, entered Old City Hall where he
plead not guilty to four counts of sexual
assault and one count of choking.
The plea should come as no surprise; Ghomeshi
published a Facebook post shortly after the first
allegations surfaced. The gist of the post was a selfserving attack on the credibility of the women who
had come forward accusing him of sexual assault.
BDSM. Rough consensual sex, he said, not sexual
assault.
In criminal trials, the odds are generally stacked
against the accused. Facing the full force of the state,
often unrepresented or underrepresented, often poor,
and often marginalized, the accused is fighting for her
or his liberty. Meanwhile, the Crown has access to all
the evidence and can marshal the full resources of the
state to prosecute the accused.
In sexual assault cases, however, the accused
is probably not the most vulnerable person in th P