Flirtatious emails to Ghomeshi after alleged attacks were bait, woman says

TORONTO (AP) — The first witness at the sexual assault trial of former Canadian Broadcast Corp. radio host Jian Ghomeshi has acknowledged she emailed him a bikini-clad picture of herself a year after he allegedly sexually assaulted her.

Before he was sacked by Canadian public broadcaster CBC over the scandal, Ghomeshi’s top-rated arts magazine radio show Q was heard across Canada and in more than 180 cities in the United States.

October 1, 2015: Ghomeshi pleads not guilty to five charges, including four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking.

Ghomeshi’s defence lawyer tried to poke holes in the woman’s testimony, highlighting inconsistencies between what she told police and what she said in court.

“After what she has gone through on the witness stand, it is inspiring that she is still standing and trying to encourage other women to report”, said University of Ottawa law professor Elizabeth Sheehy. The witness has said in court that Ghomeshi jerked her hair while they kissed in his vehicle, but that her head did not strike the car’s interior.

“You read about all the high-profile cases Marie does, but she’s someone who does a lot of work for free”, Rosenthal said. “Your show is still great”, wrote the witness, and included her cellphone number and a link to a music video she had appeared in.

“If I were to email and say to him, ‘Hi, it’s me”.

She has also said that on another date, Ghomeshi pulled her to her knees by her hair and punched her in the head.

“When I said under oath I didn’t communicate, I didn’t remember I did this”.

Ghomeshi, she told Henein, never replied.

She said she didn’t remember actually seeing Ghomeshi after the second assault and said “reaching out to him like this was the only way to get” the explanation she craved.

It was the first time that Henein’s pugnacious style was on full display, after an opening day dominated by the first witness’s emotional testimony that Ghomeshi had suddenly attacked her on two occasions. She insisted in court she had not watched Ghomeshi’s show, despite what her email said. “And my ears are ringing and I felt like I was going to faint and pass out on his floor”, she testified. Ghomeshi had been flirtatious, but she had no qualms accepting a ride with him, the woman testified. She also successfully defended former Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant who had been charged with criminal negligence, causing the death of a cyclist after an altercation.

Henein pointed out that the woman gave varying accounts of the punching incident, that she told the media she had been pulled down or thrown to the ground and told police at first the details were blurry, but later told them she had been pushed to the ground. Here are five facts about the case.

Her turn in the witness box over Tuesday, the first complainant issued a statement through her lawyer, Jake Jesin. She has yet to testify. “I always understood that this process would be hard and I remain satisfied that I chose to come forward”.

The disconnect between the sturdy soldier-on tone of the statement and what had just happened in Courtroom 125 was as staggering as everything else.