Therapist’s influence on sex assault complainant under scrutiny at trial
Clinical psychologist called accused ‘a predator,’ court hears
Warning: This column contains graphic testimony of an alleged sexual assault.
Two hours after leaving his house, she was emailing her therapist — unsure if she had just been sexually assaulted.
“Am I being dramatic?” she wrote. “Am I making this all up?”
The normally private and confidential relationship between the therapist and a former McMaster University student was probed, dissected and parsed Thursday at the judge-alone trial of YouTuber Jack Densmore. He is accused of forcing the student into oral sex and intercourse during a first date on Aug. 5, 2020. She testified he had his phone out and said he was filming her, though he stopped when she told him to.
“Something happened,” read the subject line of an email the student sent her therapist after leaving Densmore’s Hamilton Mountain home that night.
Over several months, the therapist discussed the incident repeatedly with the student as she tried to decide if she wanted to press charges.
Defence lawyer Mark Fahmy sug- gested Dr. Michele Laliberte, a clin- ical psychologist affiliated with McMaster University and St. Joseph’s Healthcare, convinced the student she had been raped, told her Dens- more had likely done it to other women and pushed her to go to police.
While several of the student’s close relatives and friends also en- couraged her to go to police, Fahmy focused most intently on Laliberte.
On the night of the date, the stu- dent was 19 and had just finished her first year at Mac. Her identity is protected by a publication ban.
He was 26 and well known for his YouTube videos in which he goes by the name Jack Denmo and hits on drunk university students, signing their breasts and encouraging them to have sex with multiple partners at homecoming street parties. Some videos have been viewed 10 million times.
In a matter separate from his current trial, involving a different woman, Densmore is also charged with sexual assault, voyeurism and distributing intimate images. That trial is pending.
“What if he actually took a video?” the student emailed Laliberte the night of the date. “If he did and that got out, that could ruin my entire life.”
The therapist responded the next day. She should consider having a rape kit administered at the hospital to preserve evidence.
“This was an assault,” the therapist wrote. “Nothing you did or wore gave him permission to do this.”
A few hours later, the student had a rape examination at Hamilton General Hospital.
A few hours after that, Laliberte emailed again to say: “The only person responsible for the assault is him.”
Two days after the date, the student’s texts to friends and family showed she was undecided about going to police.
She had an in-person session with Laliberte that morning. The therapist recommended the student write out the details of the date, while it was still fresh. The student did that, entitling it “My Story.”
In her notes on the session, the therapist wrote: “It is clear (the student) attempted to make good decisions and he was a predator.”
The student testified the therapist was of the opinion Densmore had sexually assaulted women before.
A half-hour after the session, the student texted her stepmother to say Laliberte helped her see Densmore’s actions were “calculated” and that “without question it is a sexual assault and a rape and I’m not at fault for any of it.”
At 5 p.m. the student filled out a report on the Hamilton police website.
“I am unsure if I want to press charges at this time, but I am deeply concerned if he has any videos/ photos of me,” she wrote.
The student’s mother pressured her to move forward with the police investigation.
“She said I need to press charges. Because otherwise if I don’t I’m letting him do that to other girls,” the student texted at the time.
On Sept. 25, four days before the student did a formal interview with police, she had another session with her therapist and they rehearsed what she would say to the investigator.
In the end, it doesn’t matter what Densmore did before the date. Or what he may do in the future. And it doesn’t matter what advice the student got. Or what opinions her therapist or friends or family held.
All that matters — what the judge will have to decide — is what happened on that date.
Two days after the date, the student’s texts to friends and family showed she was undecided about going to police