so anyway. I went to court yesterday again, to listen to more of a trial I was observing about two weeks ago. It was submissions from the defence and the Crown yesterday, in the case of a man who was professing to be a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, and ten women were accusing him of sexual assault. When I went a couple of weeks ago, he was on the stand in his own defence, and I thought he was very... glib... I know the lawyer who is prosecuting, he used to be a customer at the coffee shop, and he talked to me outside at the break, and helped me with the spellings of the case names, for which I am eternally grateful. I now have to write a paper on consent issues and similar fact evidence. In other words, he says the women said it was ok, and the Crown says that under the Criminal code all bets are off because he abused a position of trust, which vitiates consent. The similar fact thing has to do with him being tried for all ten cases at once, and whether that constitutes prejudice. Meaning, is something being said about his character... that's a hard one. Ten women saying similar things. The defence suggested collusion, but the Crown said that two or three of the women not only didn't know the others, but went to the police separately without knowing that anyone else had.

some things the defence said seem, if you'll excuse the word, indefensible. He, the defence lawyer, compared these women, who kept coming back for treatments, to drug addicted prostitutes who kept coming back for more drugs. He also tried to insinuate that they were all flakes and all had mental difficulties. Granted, I didn't see any of them, I took care not to go when they were testifying as it seemed too voyeuristic. I liked it that Danny, the Crown counsel, knew who I was and why I was there, I figured if any of the others involved said to him "why was that woman in the back taking notes," he'd at least know the answer.