Crown prosecutor Brian White recommends and Ontario Justice Thomas McKay fines victim of sexual assault $2,000 and orders her to pay $600 victim surcharge for disclosing HER name to friends/family. Canadian justice shields the system, not victims.
Sara J. Casselman@SaraJCasselman:
This is our justice system folks. A survivor in our community was fined yesterday for sharing a transcript of the judge’s ruling *in her favour* with her friends and family.
Emmett Macfarlane@EmmMacfarlane:
Absolutely outrageous. An egregious abuse of Crown and judicial authority.
On what principle could this possibly be permitted? The ‘protection of one’s identity’ should entirely be up to the ‘protected’ person.
…. the underlying rule is meant to protect survivors. In so far as this plea agreement appears to revictimize that group in its application, we have a problem.
Gary Allan@DGAllan Replying to @EmmMacfarlane:
This brings the concept of justice into disrepute.
Dr. nadiav@nadiav Replying to @EmmMacfarlane:
this is beyond horrible.
David_M_W@David__M__W Replying to @EmmMacfarlane:
People trying to defend this nonsense might focus on the reference in the article to how protecting her identity protects her *and her children*. They could claim that she is not the only one the order seeks to protect. But that would be a lame argument.
Matt S@MattSeg09 Replying to @EmmMacfarlane:
The only possible reasonable reason I could see is if multiple people were victims in the case, and identifying oneself could lead to the other victims being identified. Otherwise, completely stupid
Sexual assault victim fined in Kitchener court for breaking order protecting her identity by Gordon Paul, March 18, 2021, the Kitchener Record
A sexual assault victim pleaded guilty on Wednesday to breaking a publication ban protecting her identity.
The Waterloo Region woman got a transcript of the judge’s reasons for finding the man guilty of sexual assault and sent it to friends and family, described in court by her lawyer as “support persons.”
The transcript contained the names of the victim and the man who was found guilty, although family and friends already knew their identities.
Someone sent it to a female friend of the man, Kitchener court was told on Wednesday. The woman who was charged said she does not know who sent it.
The man contacted police and the woman was charged with breaking the publication ban. She was fined $2,000 and ordered to pay a $600 victim surcharge fine.
“It seems like a great injustice has been done to a victim,” Sara Casselman, executive director of the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region, said in an interview on Wednesday. “The law was twisted and turned around and ended up harming a survivor.”
In sexual assault cases, orders banning publication of information that could identify the alleged victim are routinely requested by the Crown and agreed to by the judge. That is what happened in this case, the woman’s defence lawyer, Val Ruoso, said in an email to The Record.
Ruoso explained why the woman distributed the transcript.
“My client thought that since she was the complainant in that trial, that it was OK for her to share the transcript with friends and family, since the ban was meant to protect her identity, but she was mistaken.”
Was it proper to charge her?
“On the one hand if court orders are to be taken seriously and are to be obeyed, then such orders need to be enforced and people who breach such orders should be held accountable,” Ruoso said.
“On the other hand, however, I don’t believe that many victims are properly advised of how publication bans work and that if they don’t feel the need to be protected by a publication ban, then they need to request that such a ban either not be made or be lifted.
“If this had been made clear to my client, I think this whole situation could have been avoided.”
Many people think the Crown is a lawyer for crime victims, Casselman said.
“That is not the case. Survivors of sexual violence don’t have advice about the whole process from a legal advocate of their own. It should be free of charge as a victim of crime.”
A clear message needs to be sent that court orders must be respected, Crown prosecutor Brian White told Justice Thomas McKay.
But he added: “The context of this is important. (She) was, of course, the complainant in the sex assault trial. Arguably the publication ban is there to protect her interests and the interests of her children.”
It is “an unusual set of circumstances,” McKay, who was not the judge who ordered the publication ban, said in court.
“I understand sort of the emotional impact of being a victim of a crime. I know that a crime such as this, it’s particularly personal and people have a reaction to that,” he said.
“That being said, court orders have to be followed, particularly ones that deal with people’s privacy.”
The judge agreed to a recommendation from the Crown and defence for a $2,000 fine.
“The purpose of a publication ban is to protect the victim,” Casselman said.
“I believe the way that this process rolled out has the opposite effect and in fact it harms the victim. As intended in Caveman Canada’s misogynistic-patriarchal-sexist-abusive-against-women society and judicial industry.
“And it also provided the man found guilty of sexual assault with a way to get back at his victim. The fact that the man who sexually assaulted her could bring her to court on this … it seems like he’s trying to exercise power and control over her.”
Using the legal system to do it is “horrible,” Casselman said. “It’s not the way the system is supposed to be used.
“In the almost 20 years that I’ve been doing this work, I’ve not run into this situation before. To me the injustice is quite significant here.”
Refer also to:
If rape-enabling shit sits atop the judicial industry, what runs through it?
How prevalent is racism (and misogyny) among Canadian lawyers & judges?
“It’s the judges!” enabling rape and murder of women. No kidding. In Canada too.