959 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

I have no idea of course whether an assault happened but you have to wonder how a case like this can be brought to trial let alone some ones career ruined.

https://halifax.city...n-trial-5843499

Because at some point we decided to do away with even reasonable time limits (statute of limitations) to bring forward sexual assault cases.

And on top of that the Crown has lowered the bar for taking a case like this to trial.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 20 September 2022 - 10:26 AM.

[spanky123]

Not sure if this trial features “plaintiffs”.

 

Was trying to avoid using the term 'victim'.

[Victoria Watcher]

I think everyone except the accused that gives testimony is a “witness” even if they did not see a/the crime. ie.an expert witness.

[Victoria Watcher]

For example, she originally told investigators that the events occurred in 1989, not 1988.

 

She also admitted that at least three other things she’d told investigators were not correct. First, that she’d gotten “loud, really loud” when pushing Fortin back. She said it remained a whisper.

 

Second, that Fortin had touched her vagina — she admitted he did not — and third, that she had heard Fortin speak at the time and recognized his francophone accent. She told the court he had not spoken during the alleged assault.

 

The second witness in the trial was the alleged victim’s roommate at the time of the incident in 1988. She confirmed many of the details described by the first witness in court of their shared room at the college.

 

But she said she had no recollection of the alleged victim talking to her about a sexual assault involving Fortin. (The day before, the first witness said she had whispered for her roommate during the alleged assault and later “confronted” her former roommate about it).

 

“I don’t recall it. So, I’m not saying that didn’t happen, because I have personally, from my own trauma, I have blocked a lot of those memories out,” she said.

______________________________________

 

Fortin’s lawyer attempted to poke more holes into the victim’s story by calling two additional witnesses, including her boyfriend at the time of the alleged assault.

 

The alleged victim told the court Monday that immediately after Fortin left her room, she had gone to her then-boyfriend who was also a student at Royal Military College Saint-Jean and described what had just transpired to him.

 

Quizzed by Fortin’s lawyer, her ex-boyfriend contradicted that statement and said that she had never spoken to him about any sexual assault at any time.

 

“I have no recollection of conversations as a result of a trauma, a sexual assault” between the victim and “anyone else,” he said. Defence lawyers also played video of him repeating a similar statement to police in 2021.

 

 

https://www.devondis...sure-it-was-him

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier in the article:

 

 

 

 

 

“I never did what she accuses me of,” Fortin told the court while testifying during the second day of his trial Tuesday. He said he had never entered in the alleged victim’s room, never made a physical or sexual gesture towards her and had never had any form of physical contact with her.

 

 

 

 

 

So it sounds like the trial nearing the end already.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 20 September 2022 - 12:21 PM.

[spanky123]

^ You would hope. Any bets the judge finds him guilty anyways to avoid controversy and let the appeals court deal with it?

 

in the Duke case the prosecutor was disbarred. We need that for lawyers and judges here as well.

Edited by spanky123, 20 September 2022 - 12:27 PM.

[lanforod]

This is wierd. How did this ever meet any threshold of 'reasonable chance of conviction' to actually take this to trial. Its 'she said, he said' with what looks like absolutely nothing to corroborate what she said.

[Victoria Watcher]

This is wierd. How did this ever meet any threshold of 'reasonable chance of conviction' to actually take this to trial. Its 'she said, he said' with what looks like absolutely nothing to corroborate what she said.

 

Politics.   I suppose it might meet one of the tests - public interest.   But that's not supposed to come into play until after #1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.ppsc-spp...pd/p2/ch03.html

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 20 September 2022 - 12:59 PM.

[spanky123]

This is wierd. How did this ever meet any threshold of 'reasonable chance of conviction' to actually take this to trial. Its 'she said, he said' with what looks like absolutely nothing to corroborate what she said.

 

Not only that but the people she identifies as witnesses dispute her story.

 

The prosecution standard these days seems to be that as long as the 'victim' is willing to testify then it goes to court. Let someone else make the decision and take the heat. Of course the defendant has their life ruined in the process.

[Victoria Watcher]

The complainant said she formally reported the case in 2021 to a senior military leader who was in her chain of command at the time. That man testified the complainant told him there had been a party in the college drill hall earlier that evening and she awoke in her bed to Fortin on top of her.

 

"She said there was some groping, restraining and an attempt to penetrate," the man said.

 

During cross-examination by the Crown prosecutor, the man said he didn't always take notes during his conversations with the complainant. The man said he didn't remember exactly what the complainant told him and was relying on those notes he took.

 

 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...trial-1.6588674

 

 

 

 

Another weak witness.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 20 September 2022 - 02:45 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

A naval officer has been dismissed from her duties on a coastal defence vessel after allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour during a port visit in Portugal came to light.

In a statement released Tuesday, the Canadian Armed Forces said Vice-Admiral Bob Auchterlonie relieved the executive officer of HMCS Kingston of her duties "as a result of an alleged incident of inappropriate conduct of a sexualized nature that took place during a port visit in Lisbon, Portugal, while deployed on Operation Reassurance."


https://www.cbc.ca/n...nduct-1.6606125

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 04 October 2022 - 04:03 PM.

[spanky123]

^ Note that the CBC names every man accused of misconduct but won't name the woman in this case.

[Mike K.]

The name was not released to the media, citing an active investigation that will go before the public court, no longer a military court.

[spanky123]

The name was not released to the media, citing an active investigation that will go before the public court, no longer a military court.

 

Hasn't stop them from naming any man.  

[Victoria Watcher]

Jesse Kline: Armed Forces admit there's no one left to use its rusted out gear

 

The current personnel crisis is the end result of decades of neglect and priorities that have little to do with military readiness

 

https://nationalpost...obox=1665491954

 

 

The Forces recently updated its dress code to remove “gendered language” and restrictions on hair length and hair colouring, and allow personnel to wear articles of clothing traditionally reserved for the opposite sex. It has also placed an emphasis on attracting women, First Nations and other minorities — which is fine (in a perfect world, our military would reflect Canada’s diversity), so long as it doesn’t distract from the goal of creating the biggest, baddest army we can muster.  I’m just not convinced that it won’t.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 11 October 2022 - 10:03 AM.

[spanky123]

^ Of the 105+ CF members killed in Afghanistan, 1 was a woman despite women representing about 18% of the force. Haven't heard anyone arguing that that stat needs to be equaled.

[AllseeingEye]

Unfortunately he is quite correct in much of that report in terms of our (lack) of military capability in 2022; prevailing attitudes on behalf of certain so-called leaders, and individuals and political parties at the federal level re the CAF and the subject of the role of the military in general in this country; the deplorable history surrounding the (lack) of allocated funding and budget resources; and above all the true DND/CAF Achilles heel on the equipment side of the equation, our infamous, utterly malfunctioning military procurement system.  

[Mike K.]

War ship fleet replacement is now costed at $84 billion.

[AllseeingEye]

Actually the final tally is estimated to be In excess of $300 billion counting the operational costs over the service lives of the ships - which are expected to be in front line service to the 2070's; to illustrate the utter ludicrous and frankly scandalous situation in Canada each new frigate could cost on the order of $5 billion CDN dollars - the new Royal Navy !AIRCRAFT CARRIERS! cost less than that. Each. 

 

Some DND contractors, speaking recently and very anonymously of course, now believe the new frigate costs - incurred mainly because this country defers and defers and defers....and defers new construction for the longest possible timeframe - will now almost certainly adversely impact ALL of the F-18, air force transport and RCN fuel replenishment ship replacement programs. Translated of course "impact" means 'buy less of' each'. Much less.....

 

Of course 'deferring' - new military purchases, programs, not to mention updating our badly outdated Defence White Paper policy - ignoring them and hoping they go away quietly into the night, is the one and only thing that we truly excel at in the Defence portfolio; and by dawdling along aimlessly staring at our collective shoes year after year it inflates the ultimate 'final' costs into the stratosphere. And at the end of the day, as usual, its highly likely it'll be the poor SOB's in uniform who pay the ultimate price.

[Mike K.]

Should deferral make things cheaper? Technology has vastly improved since the 80s. And stuff should be faster/easier to produce, no?

[AllseeingEye]

No not at all; technology isn't the issue here - humans are.

 

Anyone who has ever worked on a large project, especially a capital intensive one knows that cost control and very close project cost and scope oversight is a requisite to success; this is at the root of much of the problem here - there is little oversight, less transparency and worse the Liberals seem to have little idea and less interest in reining in the burgeoning costs which went from $30 billion originally a decade ago, to $67 billion and now $84 billion - and we are still nearly 5 years away from actually cutting steel!

 

Additionally spiralling costs include everything from the involvement of way too many very highly paid 'consultants', an utter lack of experienced procurement DND staff with respect to such a huge project - big surprise when was the last time DND underwent any procurement this enormous? Probably not in my lifetime and I'm 62; to the fact the original NSP envisioned two shipyards, since expanded to three (including now the Davie yard in QC which was not in the original project plan but, you know..."Quebec" and jobs - far too irresistible for the Liberals to say no).

 

Collectively that is all known as 'scope creep' and is the death knell of any project if its not tightly controlled.

 

Irving, one of the original two shipyards tagged with building the new surface combatants (which will be based on the British Type 26 frigates but of course "Canadianized" - yet another massive cost multiplier) is now lobbying the feds for up to $400 million additional taxpayer dollars to upgrade its facilities to complete the task: this was expressly forbidden under the terms of the original contract. Yet it may happen for "politically expedient" reasons. And if its permitted there what is to stop Davie and the Washington Group in North Vancouver from making the same ask of the feds?

 

From a cost/cost control standpoint the project is a complete s*** show; the former National Defence procurement chief is a guy named Alan Williams who earlier this year in a story in the Ottawa Citizen claimed "....it is now clear the CSC project is out of control."Who better to know than him?

 

When a modest, barely 6000+ ton frigate designed for a crew of maybe 160 personnel costs a billion $++ per unit more than a 65,000-ton RN aircraft carrier with as many as 1700 crew and 40 very high tech, very expensive stealth fighter aircraft, then you have very serious project cost control issues on your hands...