The London Police Service (LPS), Ontario, should have apologized “sooner,” according to two sexual violence crisis centers in the city. While they welcome this “big step”, they believe that the slow processing of this complaint has discouraged many from entering the police station door.
“It shakes confidence when things take longer,” laments in an interview with Duty the general director of Anova, Jessie Rodger, the day after a press conference during which the SPL apologized to the alleged victim of a sexual assault committed in 2018 by five former members of Junior Team Canada.
As in 2022, when the matter was made public by the sports network TSN, it expects the number of calls to its centers to increase. The two Anova shelters have been operating at 95% capacity for at least five years.
The Carrefour des femmes du Sud-Ouest de l’Ontario has also received calls from “users who want to know how the investigation will go,” says its general director, Mwenyi Cornélie Mbaya.
If she believes that it is “not too late” for the police to regain their trust, she indicates that “women are still very reluctant to open up in the event of sexual assault, because as soon as they arrive , that they tell their story, straight away, they are not believed. » According to her, “the outcome of the trial will be very decisive for the victims. »
A “better equipped” police force
Without specifically talking about the sexual assault allegation allegedly involving five former Junior Team Canada players, Mme Rodger indicates that the SPL presented “gaps” a few years ago, particularly with regard to the “understanding” of “rape culture”, “consent”, and could “assume things about a victim”, c i.e. “focus on what she was wearing, what she was doing, if she was drinking, etc.” »
According to the Globe and Mail, 30% of sexual assault allegations made to London police between 2010 and 2014 were considered unfounded. A figure higher than the national average, which is around 20%. In 2018, London police created a committee to study, with organizations including Anova and the Crossroads for Women of Southwestern Ontario, cases of sexual assault that did not lead to charges. Thanks to this, Mme Rodger believes the police department is now “better equipped” to handle sexual assault cases.
On Monday, police confirmed that they had been informed of the young woman’s allegations “in the days following” the alleged assault in 2018, but had closed the file in 2019 without laying charges. According to its leader Thai Truong, the SPL did not have sufficient grounds to pursue the complaint at that time. “I can confirm that some evidence was not available when the investigation concluded in 2019,” added Detective Sergeant Katherine Dann, who like Mr. Truong, was, at that time, not involved in the handling of this matter.
“The evidence doesn’t come out of nowhere – if it could have been found in 2023, it should have been found in 2018 as part of a thorough investigation,” Anova’s team said on X. Maybe “better questions were asked this time,” M supposesme Rodger, who believes that the SPL has today “learned a lot (…) about how to investigate sexual assaults while taking into account trauma and violence”.
Lack of “nuance”
On Monday afternoon, SPL leader Thai Truong, who said regaining the community’s trust is a “priority,” interrupted the press conference’s question period to assert that “the way we represent the young women and girls on television, in music videos, the way we write about them, the photos in magazines, all contribute to sexual violence and [s]“normalization”.
An intervention which “shocked” Mwenyi Cornélie Mbaya. “We would like to trust the police again, but when a sentence like that comes out, we ask ourselves questions. »
Mme Rodger found that Mr. Truong’s speech lacked “nuance”, even if she did not disagree with the officer’s comments. However, “in this case”, rather than “talking about what a victim could have done (…), I would prefer to talk about toxic masculinity, about hockey culture”.
Anova believes that there is also “more to be done in terms of training people who work in the hotel and restaurant sector, where sexual violence, human trafficking, in particular, occurs.” None of the four employees of the Delta Hotels by Marriott London Armories – where the alleged assault allegedly took place in 2018 – interviewed by The duty was not aware of the affair. However, it should be noted that some of them were not in office in 2018.
Need help ?
If you are a victim of sexual violence, you can contact a Sexual Assault Support Center (CALACS) near you, or call Sexual Violence Help at 1 888 933-9007.
This report is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.