We have new developments to report in the case of Madam Justice Lori Douglas, the Canadian judge featured in pornographic pictures reflecting BDSM themes. As you may recall, the Canadian Judicial Council is currently investigating Douglas, based in part on claims that she sexually harassed a former client of her husband’s.
That client, Alex Chapman, claimed that the judge’s husband, Jack King, used the nude photos of Justice Douglas to try and entice Chapman into a three-way. Chapman testified that he was “disgusted” by the “terrible pictures” and that King “bull[ied]” him and “raped [his] mind.”
But if the latest allegations about him are true, Chapman is no innocent….
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The allegations are discussed in a National Post column by Christie Blatchford entitled “Manitoba judge’s accuser no sexual wallflower, but inquiry astonishingly refused to hear about it.” The piece begins:
When a fellow complains about the injury to his dignity as a result of unwanted sexual attention, it’s hard to imagine anything that might be more relevant to the truth of that claim than information starkly to the contrary being found on his computer.
Yet that’s precisely the evidence the Canadian Judicial Council inquiry that is probing the conduct of Manitoba Associate Chief Justice Lori Douglas refused to hear.
Blatchford then goes on for a few paragraphs about the procedural history of the proceedings against Justice Douglas. That stuff is… BORING. What we really want to know is: what evidence was allegedly found on Alex Chapman’s computer? Evidence that lawyers participating in the investigation were not allowed to use in their cross-examination of Chapman?
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The evidence on the laptop, according to the affidavit, revealed that Mr. Chapman had signed up as an online sex performer and agreed to perform sex acts in front of a camera for strangers, that he had “quantities of pornographic images sent to him by friends and by women he was involved with,” and suggestions that he had “engaged in sexual activity with three or four women at a time.”
Yowza! Who says Canadians are boring, eh? If guys in my high school had engaged in sexual activity with three or four women at a time, it most definitely would have been a big deal.
The panel took a recess to consider whether one of Douglas’s lawyers — leading litigatrix Sheila Block, “one of the world’s top 10 commercial litigators,” according to her Torys website bio — could use this material in her cross-examination of Chapman. The panel ultimately concluded that she could not:
The inquiry chair, Judge [Catherine] Fraser, said the evidence wasn’t relevant in that the complaint against Judge Douglas is about allegedly non-consensual sexual advances made to Mr. Chapman, while the laptop evidence showed his consensual sexual activity.
In further support of the council’s ruling, just because a man allegedly enjoys the occasional four-way doesn’t mean he can’t be “disgusted” by “terrible pictures” of a live nude Canadian judge.
On the other hand, Blatchford notes the following:
Mr. Chapman has complained, both in an affidavit and during his often-tearful testimony in Winnipeg this summer, that he was personally disgusted, his pride as a black man diminished, by the hard-core sex pictures sent to him in 2003 by Jack King.
Chapman’s testimony seems like a bit of a stretch. In light of his claims, it would have been reasonable for the council to permit the allegations about him to come in via cross-examination. This investigation already overflows with the sordid and the bizarre; what’s wrong with a little more?
Right now the case is on hold; as Blatchford explains, “its future [is] up in the air as a result of [independent counsel Guy] Pratte’s abrupt resignation and pending applications for judicial review of the panel’s fitness and fairness.” But we’ll continue to follow this case whenever it resumes. We can’t resist covering our naked neighbors to the north.
Manitoba judge’s accuser no sexual wallflower, but inquiry astonishingly refused to hear about it [National Post]