CANADA
The Tyee
By Bob Mackin, Today, TheTyee.ca
Former Vancouver 2010 Olympics CEO John Furlong said under cross-examination June 22 that he dropped his defamation lawsuit against Laura Robinson because he felt “vindicated in the court of public opinion,” but did not say why he never sued over allegations of sexual abuse.
Bryan Baynham played CBC news reports from September 2012 and October 2013 that included allegations of sexual abuse by former student Beverly Abraham that were not in Robinson’s Georgia Straight story.
“You never sued CBC for the allegations of sexual abuse, you never sued [Ontario aboriginal newspaper] Anishinabek News at all, you never sued Laura Robinson for publishing allegations of sexual abuse,” Baynham said in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver. “You didn’t add that to the claim, did you?”
Replied Furlong: “I sued Laura Robinson for her behaviour and conduct in the whole matter.”
Furlong later explained that the three lawsuits by people claiming to be ex-students of his took precedence. “These three which were far and away the worst things said about me in my life, which she had advanced and had been involved in my view all the way along. I had been completely vindicated in the court of public opinion and it was time to move on in my life.”
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