The first witness at the sexual assault trial of former Canadian Broadcast Corp. radio host Jian Ghomeshi is testifying that he was charming before he suddenly went into a rage, pulling her hair and punching her, 13 years ago.
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Ghomeshi, the former host of CBC Radio’s popular culture show has pleaded not guilty to four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking.
Ghomeshi has argued that his acts were consensual rough sex of the kind found in erotic novels such as the best-seller Fifty Shades of Grey.
The first witness in the trial of Jian Ghomeshi has wrapped up testimony.
She testified that in late 2002, Ghomeshi pulled hard on her hair while they were kissing in his auto.
Ghomeshi watched Henein intently as she grilled the woman on the witness stand, resting his chin in his hand while maintaining the serious expression he’s maintained since being charged.
Ontario court Judge William Horkins indicated that he favours allowing such access.
Defending Ghomeshi in the trial is Toronto lawyer, Marie Henein, a expert in high-profile sexual assault cases. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
She also defended her testimony about the vehicle he was driving in their first encounter, although Henein said Ghomeshi didn’t have a VW Beetle at the time. She added she did not think Ghomeshi would reply to a negative email.
CBC had subsequently explained that he chose to fire Jian Ghomeshi after learning of “explicit evidence” showing that he would physically hurt a woman.
“Every time I see his face I’m traumatized”, she said. The woman insisted she was battling nerves during the media interview, and did not fully recall events of over a decade earlier.
“I told them the truth that day through my nerves”, the witness answered.
“Some of them are just very courageous to put their names and faces out there in connection with these charges”, he said.
Another woman, who is an author and a lawyer, writes an article for the Huffington Post involving her own allegations of an aggressive, non-consensual encounter with Ghomeshi. He will face a separate sex assault charge at a trial in June.
“The question of previous inconsistent statements may or may not be a serious problem for a witness, if the judge [uses them] to judge the witnesses’ overall credibility”, Rosenthal said.
“To state the obvious, this trial has attracted an extraordinary amount of media attention”, Horkins said as proceedings got underway Monday.
Lawyers for the complainants wanted clarity on how their client’s privacy rights would be respected before sensitive materials such as photographs, video or audio recordings, would be “disseminated to the whole world”. However, due to the fact that the case itself is an indictable offence as well as the choking charge present, he runs the risk of between a 10 year to a life time sentence due to the nature of the crimes.
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Henein’s approach is “not surprising”, said Lisa Ridgedale, a former Crown attorney turned defence lawyer in British Columbia.
