by jon » Thu Oct 30, 2014 3:39 pm
Jian Ghomeshi allegations leads Police Chief Bill Blair to encourage sexual assault victims to come forward
By Josh Visser, National Post
October 30, 2014 3:30 PM
Warning: Story contains disturbing details
In light of the disturbing allegations against former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair is encouraging victims of sexual abuse to come forward to police.
“Any person who has been the victim of a sexual assault, I want to encourage them to come forward and report, give us an opportunity to conduct an investigation and gather the evidence,” he said, adding that police can put victims in contact with services that could help them in their recovery.
“We are quite prepared to conduct a criminal investigation should they come forward with complaints,” he said.
Not long after Blair’s comments to reporters, two public relations companies representing Ghomeshi dropped him as a client.
Navigator, a high-stakes crisis company, said that “circumstances of our engagement” with Ghomeshi had changed and they were no longer representing him. Their relationship was first announced over the weekend when the allegations against Ghomeshi hit.
Rock-it Promotions, Ghomeshi’s long-time publicity company, also dropped him as a client Thursday afternoon.
Chief Blair said there is not an open investigation as a result of the allegations laid against Ghomeshi in the media by at least eight women.
“People may be reluctant to report their victimization and to participate in a criminal invitation or the criminal justice system,” Blair said. “Out first priority is their safety and recovery.
“One of the things we will not do is force them to do something they do not want to do,” he added when asked why police would not track down the women who have come forward in the media.
Meanwhile, the CBC is offering counselling to its employees and announced it is hiring a third-party organization to conduct an investigation into the allegations into their former star employee. Ghomeshi has filed a $55-million lawsuit against his former employer since his dismissal.
Ghomeshi broke his silence Thursday with a short Facebook post promising to respond “directly” to the latest allegations. However, he said he would not be speaking further to the media. He has lost thousands of Facebook followers since the latest allegations from a number of women on Wednesday, which included Trailer Park Boys actress Lucy DeCoutere.
DeCoutere told the Toronto Star that in 2003 Ghomeshi “choked her to the point she could not breathe and then slapped her hard three times on the side of her head.”
Another woman, a CBC producer at the time of their 2012 encounter, said Ghomeshi threw her against a wall and she felt compelled to perform fellatio on him “just to get out of there.”
Chief Blair said there is no statute of limitations for the kind of allegations that Ghomeshi is facing.