Sex, lies, and a big-eared teddy heading to court

By Michael Harris
iPolitics
November 3, 2014

http://www.ipolitics.ca/2014/11/02/sex-lies-and-a-big-eared-teddy-heading-to-court/

Sex, lies, and perhaps videotape.

The Jian Ghomeshi story took me on a bullet train back to the past — to Easter Sunday 1989 to be precise.

On that day, the newspaper I was managing in St. John’s, the Sunday Express, broke the Mount Cashel orphanage story.

It was the story of children at the orphanage and their sexual and physical abuse at the hands of a lay order of the Roman Catholic Church. The Irish Christian Brothers were legendary across the province as teachers and caregivers. They had also, as it turned out, been infiltrated by a coven of pedophiles.

It was a story of abused innocence versus overwhelming institutional authority — for in the Newfoundland of those days, still a denominational society, there was no more powerful institution beyond government itself than the Roman Catholic Church.

The nightmare of Mount Cashel began as a sensational newspaper story and ended in a police investigation, a court case, federal prison terms for the perpetrators, a royal commission, and multi-million dollar compensation for 422 victims across North America. And yes, finally, after 25 years, an apology to the victims from the Irish Christian Brothers. I should also say that it all started with a single victim whom I happened to believe: Shane Earle.

In a generic sense, sexual and physical assault cases have this unique feature: they depend upon the evolution of the victim. Better than most, I understand why Ghomeshi’s accusers initially chose to remain anonymous. They are in thrall to a potent mixture of emotions that paralyses the will to act. Fear, shame, self-preservation and the sense that the victimizer towers in importance above the victim — Christian Brother above orphan, media superstar above aspiring young women half his age.

And then there is the self-blame. In retrospect, victims always think they should have known better, that they should have been able to stop their abusers. Tragically, in most cases, the boys of Mount Cashel never fought back. If a Christian Brother was doing it, how could it be wrong?

It is not well known, but I came very close to not running the Mount Cashel story. It was not because I didn’t believe Shane Earle. I did. But in the beginning, he wanted to tell his story anonymously. He was a twenty-something waiter at a St. John’s hotel and didn’t want people to know what had happened to him as a child.

As with many victims, he felt responsible for what took place during the theft of his childhood at Mount Cashel. He felt guilty “ratting out” the Brothers, some of whom had shown him occasional acts of kindness. Shame, the handmaiden of guilt in these matters, had done its work.

I told Shane that the indignity did not belong to him, but to his abusers. It seemed to me then, and the conviction if anything has strengthened, that if you are going to level devastating charges against another person who is identified in a news story, it simply can’t be done anonymously.

How can an accused answer an accuser unless he knows who they are? I arranged a top lawyer for Shane and after a lengthy private conference with Ed Roberts, a former justice minister in Newfoundland and Labrador, the young man changed his mind about remaining anonymous.

I not only ran the story using his name, it was accompanied by a photograph of the five-year-old child he was at time of his ordeal at Mount Cashel. That story kicked off a process that led inevitably to the unblinking lights of the criminal court where the allegations were tested and the verdict was eventually rendered.

When the Jian Ghomeshi story broke, thanks to the work of Jesse Brown and his podcast Canadaland with an assist from the Toronto Star, I saw the similarities and the differences with Mount Cashel.

First, the obvious differences.

The allegations against Ghomeshi were being made by young women, not children. The CBC took drastic action against their former super-star radio host before the accusers were named and without a judicial assessment of what had happened — very important points in defence of Ghomeshi’s rights and the presumption of innocence. The stories were highly prejudicial, as they always are in these circumstances.

Now the similarities to Mount Cashel.

Even though I found other victims of the Irish Christian Brothers who said that they had suffered the same abuse as Shane, they would not come forward. Even after the royal commission was called, presided over by Chief Justice Sam Hughes, a significant number of Mount Cashel residents declined to participate. In so doing, they disqualified themselves from any future compensation. As one of them confided in me, “You know, I got a good job, my wife is a doctor, I just don’t want the whole nightmare dredged up again. I’ve got a life now.”

He was lucky. A lot of boys from Mount Cashel never put it back together again, didn’t testify at the royal commission and didn’t get a cent of compensation.

In the case of Ghomeshi’s accusers, the first roadblock to identifying themselves was his celebrity. Who were they in relation to a man who was a respected, if not beloved, national media celebrity? And then there were the inevitable questions designed to cast doubt on their allegations. Did they ask Ghomeshi to stop his alleged attacks? The answer is apparently not. Why did they go to the media rather than the police and only long after the alleged assaults had taken place?

In some cases, the young women actually saw Ghomeshi again after they had allegedly been assaulted. If all those terrible things happened, why did you go back, they will be asked. Where is the proof that any of these things happened, Ghomeshi’s defenders will want to know. And against all those pejorative questions (questions every rape victim will recognize with a sinking heart), there is Ghomeshi’s claim that anything that did happen behind closed doors was consensual.

Was that why Ghomeshi himself presented evidence to the CBC aimed at showing that whatever his sexual preferences might be, what he did in the bedroom had been agreed to and was none of anybody’s business? That argument carried some weight until Thursday, October 23 when the public broadcaster was presented with “graphic evidence” that the radio host had caused physical injury to a woman – the triggering event for his firing.

The CBC has since hired a third-party investigator to look into the allegations against Ghomeshi. Part of that investigation must include getting some answers from the public broadcaster itself.

Is it true, as one of the women has alleged, that she went to her manager at CBC after being groped by Ghomeshi but was told it was no use to confront him? The manager involved has denied the woman’s account, but did anyone in CBC management know about the alleged incident, and if so, what was done about it? When did CBC management first hear disturbing stories about Ghomeshi’s treatment of women, including other staff members? Did Ghomeshi’s star-status insulate him in any way from other complaints or disciplinary action when the allegations were sexual harassment rather than inflicting injury?

Heather Conway, the CBC’s executive Vice President has answered some of these questions, she has also told staff that the corporation is “limited” in what it can say? What can’t be talked about and why not, given the CBC’s vigorous commitment to a safe and healthy workplace?

Meanwhile, the judgement in the court of public opinion has solidly shifted against Jian Ghomeshi. As in the Mount Cashel case, the witnesses against him have evolved. The sheer number of victims increases with each fresh telling of the tale of alleged violent unexpected physical and sexual attacks by Ghomeshi.

That led the police to appeal for complainants to step forward. The call was answered. Three women have lodged official complaints, and a criminal investigation is now underway into the darker shadows of rough sex Jian Ghomeshi-style.

Not only is Ghomeshi clothed in the presumption of innocence, there are no charges against him. As Jesse Brown put it, this story has far to go. Along the way, both sides will have their cheering sections, though Gomeshi’s is getting smaller by the day.

In the Mount Cashel case, some staunch Catholics stood up for the Church against what they thought was a band of pretend victims exaggerating their experiences in the quest for cash. Others championed the boys of Mount Cashel against a church that was party to their abuse by knowingly hiding their abusers and sweeping the whole thing under the rug.

In the Ghomeshi affair, or Jiangate as it is being referred to on Twitter, there are some who think he is just a kinky celebrity who has been victimized by a string of jilted acquaintances. A growing contingent, sees him as a sexual predator who has serially abused women and must face the consequences of his deeds.

Huge issues are at play here, from the protection of women to the privacy of the bedroom, from informed consent to egregious assault, from celebrityhood, fandom, and the right to work to predation, sexual opportunism, and abuse of power.

Court is the only place where the truth, ugly or otherwise, will be making an appearance — and that is a process already started by the star of the show, Jian Gomeshi.