Jian Ghomeshi Cleared Of Sexual Assault Charges

Jian Ghomeshi’s sexual assault trial has finally come to an end and the once successful Canadian broadcaster has been found not guilty.

It was a long and agonizing 8 day trial for Ghomeshi, his alleged victims and anti-assault protesters that gathered outside the Toronto courtroom but the verdict is in. Not guilty. There were three women that had accused Ghomeshi of assaulting them. They accused him of punching, strangling and battering them. From these accusations Ghomeshi lost his job as the host of the radio show Q by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation back in 2014.

The Judge for the case found in favor of Ghomeshi on the account of the inconsistency of the victims stories and the existence of reasonable doubt.

“Each complainant was less than full, frank and forthcoming in the information they provided to the media, to the police, to Crown counsel and to this Court,” Justice William Horkins wrote in his judgement.

“The evidence of each complainant suffered not just from inconsistencies and questionable behaviour, but was tainted by outright deception,” he said.

“At the end of this trial, a reasonable doubt exists because it is impossible to determine, with any acceptable degree of certainty or comfort, what is true and what is false.”

According to BBC.com, One of the victims actually sent Ghomeshi a picture of herself in a bikini after she said he punched her in the head. She made the claim that the picture was meant to be bait to lure him into incriminating himself. The prosecutor, Michael Callaghan, made the defense that “post-assault contact was not relevant to the sexual assault that took place.” He also stated that every victim will cope with assault differently.

The trail naturally attracted a mass audience of anti-assault protestors and media attention that questioned the treatment of the alleged victims. Debate surfaced, especially after the verdict was read, as to the treatment and the discouragement of future victims to come forward.

Ghomeshi’s plea was that his sexual acts with these women were consensual and were nothing more that “rough sex.”

Before they officially fired Ghomeshi, The CBC began looking into his sexual past soon after the Toronto Star’s first report. The found that there were allegations by an ex-girlfriend that he had engaged in violent sex with here that was not consensual. According to the report management had known about Ghomeshi’s past behavior and had done nothing to stop or prevent it from happening. After the Star’s report there have been a number of women who have come forth with these accusations.