The judge in the sexual assault trial of Jian Ghomeshi is holding a closed-door hearing to deal with new evidence that came to light over the weekend.
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Ghomeshi is charged with four counts of sexual assault, and one count of overcome resistance by choking, which he has pleaded not guilty to.
DeCoutere had sent several emails to Ghomeshi and one after the alleged assault.
DeCoutere, who waived her right to have her name not published, had said she forgot about her emails.
All of us have said things that could come back to bite us: Many people noted last week that Ms. Henein, in a taped appearance at a 1998 legal panel that has done the rounds online, floated the noxious notion that a defence counsel could get around the rape-shield law that prohibits raising a complainant’s previous sexual history by bringing it before the judge in a pre-trial hearing – a statement for which she has been rightly pilloried.
Ghomeshi’s defence team opposes calling the witness, saying that DeCoutere’s cross-examination showed the “the breadth and scope” of her dishonesty.
Up until last Friday, this was all she ever said about that night – and that since the alleged choking, she had always kept her distance from Ghomeshi.
She said it’s an “extremely common” reaction for women is to want to normalize the situation following the assault.
The woman, who was 32 years old at the time, said she had consented to the kissing, but she had not agreed to what followed.
The anonymous woman spoke of how much she hated Jian Ghomeshi and wanted him to get fat and lose his hair.
Robitaille also produced a Facebook conversation between DeCoutere and her friend from 11 days prior to the friend’s police statement that she says suggest the friend’s police statement “lacks hallmarks of independence”.
“Certainly the treatment they see other sexual assault survivors go through impacts their own feeling of whether or not they want to go forward”, said Marriner.
She says the backlash against Lucy DeCoutere has been frightful and she wonders what objective all that serves.
She told the court that she left the party with Ghomeshi, but then got in an argument with him and got out of his auto.
“When the group asked how she knew Ghomeshi, the witness said he replied, “‘Oh, we’re engaged'”.
“But she went out with him again, for dinner and drinks on King Street (asked why, she told Callaghan “…he’s very charming and you sort of second-guess yourself”), but there was nothing remarkable about the evening, she said.
The witness, who can not be identified under a court-ordered publication ban, testified that she and Ghomeshi were kissing on a bench in a Toronto park in July 2003 when he suddenly squeezed his hands around her throat and began to smother her.
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Lucy DeCoutere took the stand Thursday and Friday.
