The acquittal of three accused in a gang rape case, which occurred Monday at the Joliette courthouse, aroused the anger of dozens of people who came to express their revolt in the face of a “judgment which still defends the attackers”.
April 2020 in a residence in Joliette. Two girls, minors at the time, consume alcohol, cannabis and hashish during a party organized at a friend’s house. There are four boys there, some of whom attend the same high school as them.
“We make a gang bang “, one of them would have said, according to the foggy memories of one of the victims. The rest of the evening, according to the victims’ testimony, suggests that a gang rape took place. They tell how the accused forced fellatio and “complete non-consensual sexual relations” on them, without them being able to resist “given their intoxication”.
The defendants admit that intimate acts took place that evening, but instead claim that the girls “consented and even initiated the sexual relations in question.”
Faced with two contradictory versions, the court must determine the credibility of each, notes judge Bruno Leclerc. “What is at issue here is only the reliability of the story,” he writes. The latter gives little to the defense: he also describes the testimonies of two accused as “astonishing”. The court even considers that one of the two “was ready to say anything and everything” to justify himself.
The judge notes that three years after the events, the accused says he remembers details as trivial as the order of passing a joint or the time displayed on a dial. In the eyes of the magistrate, another accused offered testimony riddled with contradictions, and the justification provided to explain certain dissimilarities in his account amounts to “an explanation that is not credible and not believed”.
The same story keeps repeating itself. Our justice system is completely unsuitable for sexual assault charges.
Even if Judge Leclerc “considers that the actions probably occurred as the victims claim”, the testimonies given by the accused “raise a reasonable doubt in the eyes of the court. » The magistrate therefore decided to completely acquit two accused and to acquit a third of the most serious charge, sexual assault.
The victims’ version is subject to caution “because of their state of intoxication”, recalls the magistrate.
An “incomprehensible” judgment
This is an “incomprehensible” judgment for the Center Femmes d’hui, which launched a demonstration on Thursday in front of the Quebec courthouse to denounce the decision. “How can victims be both too intoxicated for their testimony to be credible, but sober enough to consent to sex? » asks Audrée Houle, coordinator at the center.
A similar judgment “undermines public confidence in the justice system,” adds Andréane Chabot, also from the Center Femmes d’hui. “It sends the message that no matter how much evidence there is, it will never be enough. »
In this case, several videos captured during the evening suggested that the two young victims were intoxicated. The judge nevertheless considers that these sequences do not clearly demonstrate “a degree of intoxication of the complainants” nor whether they were in a state to “consent or not to acts of a sexual nature”.
For Josée Turbis, from the Women of Today Center, “requiring victims to provide perfect testimonies is completely unrealistic.” “How do you remember all the details when you are experiencing a traumatic event, when you are in a state of intoxication or when you are unconscious? “It’s a heavy burden for the victims to bear,” she emphasizes.
According to the demonstrators, this recent judgment is in line with the decisions rendered in the trials of Gilbert Rozon and Simon Houle. “The same story keeps repeating itself. Our judicial system is completely unsuitable for accusations of sexual assault,” laments Andréane Chabot.
Judge reprimanded for bad joke
The Quebec Judicial Council has already reprimanded Judge Bruno Leclerc in 2021. The magistrate had jokingly lied to an accused who asked for his identity. Judge Leclerc responded by mentioning the name of another judge. “There is no doubt that the judge’s spontaneous response to the accused’s request to identify himself constitutes a joke [à ses dépens]. This is a lie that the judge never corrected in front of the accused, although he had the opportunity to do so,” mentions the investigation report in this case.
The Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions indicates, through his spokesperson, Me Audrey Roy-Cloutier, to be in the process of carrying out “a more in-depth examination” of Judge Leclerc’s decision before deciding whether to appeal.