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associations to hold members accountable for their conduct within the courtroom
with special attention to sexual assault and other forms of gendered based violence.
Victim/witnesses are in immediate need of lawyers with standing within the courts
to represent their best interest.
My experience has demonstrated that Toronto Police Services do not care about
sexual assault. It has been thirty years since Jane Doe first challenged the TPS for
their discriminatory treatment of sexual assault complainants. The TPS have had
enough time to reform, diversify and train but it simply does not work. It is time
to imagine alternatives outside of the institution of policing for sexual assault.
TPS make it clear that they do not care about sexual assault, so why continue the
public faade that they take issues of sexualized and gender based violence
seriously?
The detective assigned to investigating my case refused to follow-up with key
witnesses. There were witnesses willing to speak to the police who could have
immediately discredited the perpetrators version of events. I attempted to provide
evidence and the detective deemed it to be irrelevant.
This re-affirms my position that victim/witnesses need legal counsel with standing
at trial.
Admittedly, I have been lucky within the courtroom in some ways. The Crown
attorney, Ms. Jennifer Lofft assigned to prosecuting the case has an excellent
analysis and understanding of sexual assault, which is more than we can say about
most Crown attorneys in this country. As a victim/witness Ms. Lofft is the ideal
Crown attorney. The judge assigned, Justice Marvin Zuker, listened to the case
attentively and has been nothing but respectful and kind to me as a victim/witness.
Both the Judge and Crown did their jobs well. But, this should not be out of the
ordinary in sexual assault cases. Ms. Lofft and Justice Zuker both excelled at their
respective jobs and did what they could to ease the trial process for me. However, I
will not congratulate the legal system, or the various courtroom actors for doing
what they are supposed to do. Furthermore, I am not going to pretend that this
process did not infringe on my rights on numerous occasions or create substantial
and unnecessary hardships for me.
I am extremely concerned about the tactics employed by the accused lawyer Ms.
Lisa Bristow. If such behaviour remains unchecked by the courts or the law societies
it is assumed to be condoned that lawyers can pick and choose when to abide by the
law.