The first witness in the Jian Ghomeshi trial is finished on the stand after being cross-examined by the lawyer for the disgraced radio host for a second day.
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TORONTO (AP) – The first witness at the sexual assault trial of a former Canadian Broadcast Corp. radio host acknowledged Tuesday she emailed him a bikini-clad picture of herself a year after he allegedly punched her.
“I didn’t go to the police (in 2003)”, said the first complainant testifying in Jian Ghomeshi’s sexual assault trial, “because I didn’t want to deal with this”.
In a key moment, Henein read out chatty emails between the witness and Ghomeshi that the witness sent after she said Ghomeshi beat her on the head and she cut off all contact with him.
The woman, then a 41-year-old mother who worked part time jobs as a server and makeup artist, said she never saw Ghomeshi again after the second incident.
She said she wanted no contact with him after that.
The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, said she sent the emails to bait him into calling her to explain his actions.
Ghomeshi has pleaded not guilty to four counts of sexual assault, which carry a maximum 18 months in jail, and a choking charge that has a potential maximum of life in prison.
“Something that I was trying to bury kept resurfacing and I had to relive the violence over and over”, she said.
Despite this, Ghomeshi is under no legal obligation to speak at the trial, especially if Henein and his A-lister team of lawyers feel the Crown has not proven its case.
The complainant said she had met Ghomeshi, who at the time was hosting the CBC show Play, at a Christmas party in 2002.
“It is far worse to speculate or say ‘I think it happened…’ – maybe I was wearing extensions – and then you are held to it”, she said.
About a month later, she agreed to go with him to his house. She went to the media, and then to the police, after Toronto’s then-police chief told any victims to come forward.
But if the Crown is unable to include her in a similar-fact application, it could significantly weaken the prosecution’s position. His lawyer, Marie Henein, says he will plead not guilty.
The emails were the climax of a relentless cross-examination that Henein began Monday as the lawyer poked holes in the woman’s testimony and exposed inconsistencies in her various statements to police, the media and court. I had no interest in him …
She and Ghomeshi at one point started kissing while in his vehicle, she alleged that Ghomeshi reached behind her head with his hand to pull her hair.
He has said he had consensual “rough sex” with women. “I was surprised by how violent the allegations against him were”, stated Jim Hounslow, an employee of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and one of several of Ghomeshi’s accusers, told the Guardian.
Hounslow, a student when the alleged assaults occurred said that he will be following the trial, but also just wishes for everything to be all over; the case having been on-going for to long according to Hounslow.
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Ghomeshi also faces one other count of sexual assault involving a fourth complainant that will be tried separately in June.
