Brazeau’s accuser denies she attacked

The lawyer for suspended Sen. Patrick Brazeau laid out his client’s defence against assault and sexual assault charges Wednesday, saying the woman accusing Brazeau had attacked him first.

Lawyer Gerard Larocque was cross-examining the woman, who can’t be named under a court order. Although she testified that Brazeau pushed her and hit her while she was trying to get dressed in their shared home in February of 2013, Larocque suggested otherwise.

In the master bedroom, he said, “You approached my client and started to hit him with the bra in one hand and the blouse in the other.”

That’s why Brazeau grabbed the bra away from her, he said. (The bra, with a damaged shoulder strap, is evidence in the case. The woman has testified that Brazeau grabbed both pieces of clothing from her as she was trying to get dressed.) “That’s false,” the woman said. “You hit him with your hands too,” Larocque said. “That’s false,” she said again. The couple had argued the night before. The woman has testified that Brazeau had been drinking. The alleged assault happened the next morning, after her two children had left for school.

Larocque spent Wednesday picking away at the woman’s story, saying there are inconsistencies between

You approached my client and started to hit him with the bra in one hand and the blouse in the other.

what she testified this week and what she told police two years ago.

For instance, he said, she first claimed to have left the bra and blouse in the bedroom, but then they unaccountably reappeared farther down the stairs.

He said she gave two inconsistent accounts of falling over a house plant when Brazeau pushed her. He suggested she gave a flawed account of how he tore a chain from around her neck, and also about whether he had unplugged the house phone.

The woman stuck to her story but acknowledged that she was nervous and uncomfortable speaking French — not her native language — when she was interviewed by police in 2013.

That, she said, could account for differences between her original statement and testimony this week.

The trial was scheduled for three days but is running longer. The next date will be April 2 in Gatineau.