The identity of the victim of former PQ Harold LeBel could be made public in the coming weeks. The young woman has indeed filed a request to lift the ban on publication in force against her.
A hearing is scheduled for Thursday at the Rimouski courthouse to begin the process in this regard. Sources closely involved in the case, however, confirmed to The Press Wednesday that the intention is not to have the order lifted imminently, but rather within a few weeks.
Recall that the complainant had been called back to the bar in extremis in November after the defense lawyer learned that the young woman was participating in a Quebecor documentary in which she intended to reveal her identity. A lifting of the ordinance was therefore necessary, even foreseeable, to proceed with the possible broadcasting of this documentary.
“I want to transform these traumatic events into something positive, perhaps even for society by explaining the legal process”, mentioned the victim last November, explaining that this documentary is part of his journey, and that after having sought at all costs to protect her identity from the public, she now feels ready to reveal it.
This all comes the day after a decision handed down on Tuesday by the Quebec Conditional Liberation Commission, which approved Mr. LeBel’s release from prison despite the “objective seriousness” of his crime, judging that the former elected official is now showing ” empathy towards the victim.
The man was thus released from prison on Wednesday, at the quarter of his sentence, in order to complete it in a halfway house, and this, under several conditions.
After initially denying the sexual assault of which he was accused during the trial, the ex-MP is now shown to be “repentant” and “open” to the recommendations made to him in detention in order to “better understand the underlying motives to the act”, notes the Commission in its decision.
Mr. LeBel was sentenced on January 26 to a total of eight months in prison, after being found guilty a few months earlier of the sexual assault of a young woman in her Rimouski apartment in 2017 when the latter slept there with a mutual friend on a business trip.
During the trial, the victim had explained in particular that Harold LeBel had unhooked her bra, then spent the night touching her while she remained motionless, unable to sleep.
Note: the victim of Harold LeBel would not be the first complainant in a case of sexual assault to reveal his identity at the end of the trial. Recently, documentary filmmaker Léa Clermont-Dion chose to remain anonymous throughout the sexual assault trial of ex-journalist Michel Venne. She was finally out of the shadows after the verdict.
With Gabriel Béland and Vincent Larin, The Press