Dishonest Ghomeshi accusers torpedoed their own ship
Critics of Jian Ghomeshi’s acquittal this week are saying the justice system needs an overhaul with respect to sexual assault charges. Complainants, they say, are held in court to an impossibly high standard.
Nonsense. The standard, as the presiding judge reminds us in his decision, is simply to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, as witnesses are sworn to do. How do we lower that standard? By swearing in witnesses to tell mostly the truth? Some of the truth? Just a little of truth? Please. The three complainants against Ghomeshi were found to have deliberately violated their oath. They did not tell the truth. Rather, according to Justice William Horkins of Ontario’s trial court, these witnesses were deceptive, manipulative, dishonest, selfserving, misleading and, finally, not credible. They presented as scheming liars. With no other evidence but theirs, the court had no choice but to acquit. So much for “Believe the survivors.”
We in Saskatoon have heard something like this before. There was a time, not so long ago, when a lot of us believed, without a speck of supporting evidence, the supposed child survivors of systematic, sexual abuse in Martensville. Only after the lives of those falsely accused were torn asunder did it become clear in court that the children were lying, induced to do so by incompetent investigators. Children lie. Who knew? To suggest that those who make accusations of sexual assault are somehow incapable of lying is delusional. We have seen otherwise often enough to know better. All kinds of people under all kinds of circumstance can and do lie. Only the profoundly foolish or the wilfully blind could argue otherwise.
Sure, we could overhaul the justice system to convict people accused by liars. We couldn’t call it justice anymore, though. We would have to call it a lynch mob.
In this case, the accusers’ lies actually helped Ghomeshi by fatally undermining the only evidence against him. Had they told the truth, about actively wooing him in the hours, weeks and months after he supposedly had traumatized them, for instance, we might well have had a different verdict. It was not their behaviour after the alleged assault that destroyed their credibility, the judgment makes clear. Victims of sexual assault often are ambivalent towards the perpetrator, especially if it is someone they love or desire. This is understandable. Outright lies, not so much.
If there was any failure in the system, it was early on by police, long before the trial ever started. After allegations against Ghomeshi appeared in the press, Toronto police Chief Bill Blair urged women assaulted by the former radio host to come forward and press charges. The accusers, he promised, would be treated sympathetically.
“One of the things that we are very sensitive to is not to further traumatize a victim,” Blair said at the time.
Not further traumatizing anyone apparently meant not getting the whole story. Thus was the prosecution blindsided in court by embarrassing evidence from its own witnesses.
Prosecutors likewise failed to properly prepare these witnesses before the trial. Perhaps they, too, were more preoccupied with believing the victims. You get the impression the first time these witnesses were seriously questioned at all was on the witness stand. Treating them with kid gloves up to that point might have been sympathetic, but did no one any favours. The role of police is to investigate. Here, they didn’t bother and were taken for saps.
Of course it is difficult for victims to face tough questions. Too bad. Justice is incompatible with unquestioned evidence.
There have been times in human history when people were punished on the strength of allegations alone. These always were dark times, the Reign of Terror in revolutionary France, the Salem witch trials, the Red Terror in the old Soviet Union … Justice under these regimes was a joke.
We have the courts now to protect us from false witnesses, to which we all are terribly vulnerable. As the Ghomeshi trial confirms, allegations are cheap.