Daughters give voice to others at incest trial

Vital for community to continue its support, says law professor

As disturbing details emerged through the incest and sexual abuse trial of Jacques Roger Lesage — the 79-year-old Val-des-Monts man found guilty Friday of sexually abusing two of his three daughters — the women who came forward to testify against him were praised for giving a voice to thousands of nameless victims of sexual violence.

Legal experts, academics and advocates for the rights of victims of sexual violence all kept a close watch on developments in the Gatineau courtroom, where, under the scrutiny of lawyers, the trial judge and jury, the public gallery and the press, the three women relived harrowing accounts of a chapter of their lives spent in constant fear of unspeakable abuse.

The victims have done so following the extraordinary, though increasingly frequent, decision to challenge the publication ban that customarily surrounds cases involving sexual abuse.

The publication ban exists, in part, to protect complainants from being revictimized by their identities becoming public, while they endure a court process already wrought with scrutiny, in a criminal justice system that has long been criticized as being at best unfriendly, at worst traumatic, to victims of sexual violence.

“The provisions are not in place to protect the accused,” said Anne London-Weinstein, president of the Defence Counsel Association of Ottawa. “But they sometimes have that effect, because the name of the accused is suppressed, but only to protect against the leak of any information that would identify the complainants ... the name is never kept private for any reason other than to protect the alleged victims.”

But in waiving that right, lifting the veil of anonymity, and exposing the name of their father as their now-convicted abuser, the victims can reassert a measure of control that was lost to the abuse, according to University of Ottawa law professor Elizabeth Sheehy, while perhaps providing courage to other victims of sexual violence still living in fear or in shame of coming forward.

“There are sound reasons for publication bans, but one problem is, of course, it allows us to not confront the individuality and the reality of the hundreds of thousands of women who are raped in our country.

“They become this anonymous blob, and they’re not. They are individuals whose lives have been profoundly changed.

“The (daughters) decided in that circumstance that they will be somewhat directive of the trial, so they seize control over one aspect and get to assert what their wishes are.

“Reassertion of control can be very important to women who have been raped. They’re ensuring that their father can’t disappear into anonymity, and that he will be named and exposed,” said Sheehy, author of Sexual assault in Canada: law, legal practice, and women’s activism.

“I think they also give courage to other women, because in doing this, they’re rejecting the notion that there should be shame attached to this,” Sheehy said. Lesage, a father of eight, was found guilty of incest and sexually assaulting two of the three daughters who came forward with disturbing accounts of abuse over a 30-year span, starting in 1971. DNA tests confirmed Lesage fathered at least two children with one of his daughters, who first became pregnant with his child at age 13.

Crown prosecutor Nadine Piche told court Lesage plied his daughters with alcohol before sexually assaulting them in hotel rooms, in his car, his workplace and at the family’s Val-des-Monts home.

Defence lawyer Antonio Cabral questioned the credibility of the daughters, arguing the passage of time had blurred their memories.

On Friday, the jury found Lesage guilty of sexually abusing two of his daughters, while he was found not guilty on similar charges brought by a third daughter.

Sheehy said the intensified scrutiny on the witness stand presents one final hurdle in the obstacle course of due process.

“All the way through the criminal justice system, sexual assault is treated quite differently than other crimes.”

While still rare, there are several prominent recent cases in which complainants have sought to waive their right to a publication ban — notably in the trial of CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi and in that of York University student Mustafa Ururyar.

But Sheehy said the apparent shift in societal attitudes isn’t necessarily reflected in the halls of justice.

“I don’t think we’ve seen a change in the justice system yet, sadly. I think it instead suggests that growing numbers of women are becoming informed and very angry about the failures of the criminal justice system, and are deciding to engage in different strategies, in the hopes of preserving their own dignity and taking charge, instead of simply being the one who is left out of the criminal justice process.

“Humiliating details are focused on, women are asked to repeat the same thing over and over, they may be badgered, they may be tripped up by minor inconsistencies in their evidence that no person could consistently produce a narrative that never varies over the course of several years — and particularly a traumatic memory. A lot of bad things happen to women in a rape trial.”

The DCAO’s London-Weinstein said defence lawyers must strike a balance between respecting the rights of the complainant and defending the rights of the accused they’ve sworn to represent.

“Every accused person has a charter right to make full answer and defence. The rules of professional conduct from the Law Society of Upper Canada require us to be fearless and to ask every question, however distasteful. That’s how it’s phrased,” she said.

Once the trial is over, the process can still leave a void that is not so easily filled — not even by a positive verdict. That’s why, Sheehy said, it’s vital for community support, social services and advocacy to continue long after the trial’s spotlight fades.

“It is very difficult to do this alone,” Sheehy said.