Second man walks free after humiliation of Canadian teen Rehtaeh Parsons
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Version 0 of 1. A second man convicted over the humiliation of Rehtaeh Parsons, the Canadian schoolgirl who killed herself after a photograph of her reported rape was shared online, has walked free from jail after he was given a probationary sentence. The sentencing in Nova Scotia marked the end of a case that has provoked furious condemnation of the Canadian legal system that first failed to bring charges against Parsons’s alleged attackers, and then imposed a reporting ban on the victim’s name. The man, whose identity has been suppressed under Canadian law because he was a minor at the time of the assault, was convicted last year of distributing child pornography after sharing a photograph of himself assaulting the inebriated 15-year-old girl while she vomited out a window and he signalled thumbs-up to the camera. The lawyer for the man, now 20, argued that his client himself became the victim of bullying following the incident and said that he did not take part in the torment that followed the distribution of the notorious photograph. A report prepared before the sentencing noted that the man apologised to Parsons shortly after the incident and cried when he learned that she had killed herself. “You should have been crying while she was alive,” Judge Gregory Lenehan told the man on Thursday. “You stole from her her dignity, privacy and self-respect,” the judge said, calling the act “a gross violation of the personal integrity of Ms Parsons”. Related: 'Our daughter is dead. We're the surviving victims': rape, bullying and suicide, after a viral flood | Jessica Valenti The man is facing a further charge of uttering death threats against Parsons’s father, Glen Canning. He will spend 12 months on probation as a result of the pornography charge, and is forbidden from drinking alcohol or making contact with the dead girl’s family. The judge also ordered him to undergo a mental health assessment. The sentence provoked outrage among women’s rights campaigners. “It’s hard to see it as in any way matching what occurred and in any way responding,” said Karlene Moorem a counsellor at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre. “When we are looking to the judiciary to respond to what survivors have been saying about rape and incest and their effects, then probationary sentences can feel like less than justice. “When survivors see outcomes like this they can be very much discouraged from coming forward,” she added. In a victim impact statement read to the court before sentencing, Canning questioned why the crime had been tried under the lenient terms of Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act, noting that the first young man convicted in the case was granted a conditional discharge. “I don’t think [the act] should apply when it comes to sexual assault or violent crimes – the crimes that leave people damaged and hurt deeply,” he said. “Sexual assault is not a child’s crime. That’s an adult crime.” Canadian authorities have come under fierce criticism for their handling of the case, and their failure to protect victims of sexual assault. Rehtaeh Parsons died on 7 April 2013 when she was taken off life support, after attempting to commit suicide three days earlier. She had endured more than a year of taunting and humiliation after a photograph of her reported rape was disseminated on social media. In November 2011, when she was 15, she attended a small gathering including four male friends in which she got drunk. As she was vomiting out of the window, she was allegedly raped, and a photograph of the event was then disseminated around her school. Parsons reported the incident to police, but a year-long investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police resulted in no charges against any of the boys involved, drawing the ire of the hacker group Anonymous, which threatened to release their names. Shortly after, citing the receipt of “new information”, the police reopened the investigation. But the subsequent trial of two participants for distributing child pornography aroused a storm of indignation because of a compulsory ban on revealing the victim’s name, even though the case had already received wide coverage. The ban was ignored online, inspiring the Twitter hashtag #YouKnowHerName, with mainstream media following suit. A provincial inquiry into the handling of the case is due to resume following the convictions. Canning, who has become an activist in the struggle to curtail sex abuse, remains dispirited by the lack of sympathy for his daughter’s death. “It just breaks my heart to see that there’s still such a lack of faith and trust in victims when they go to police or when they come out publicly,” he told the Guardian. “It really is heartbreaking.” Canning said that he had been “relentlessly attacked for what I do, mostly by other men”. “It just seems like there’s a long way to go, like you’re pushing a mountain sometimes,” he said. “It’s overwhelming.” The fact that no charges were laid until long after Parsons killed herself is a troubling aspect of the case, said Erin Ellis, a Toronto lawyer who represents victims of sex assault said the most troubling aspect of the case was that no charges were laid until long after Parsons had killed herself. The only positive note, she said, was that the tragedy had led to the passage of legislation criminalizing cyberbullying in Nova Scotia. “It’s sad that it takes cases like this to spur that kind of reaction,” Ellis said. “But it’s nice to know there have been some results since.” But the provincial law on cyberbullying has been criticised as hastily conceived and is facing strong constitutional challenges in court. Hilla Kerner, spokeswoman for the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter, Canada’s oldest rape crisis facility said case exposed “a tremendous failure of the criminal justice system”. But she credited public outcry with forcing the police and prosecutors to take action in cases of sexual assault: “The fact that these young men were charged and convicted sends an important message to the Canadian public, for victims of rape and young women in general. And it is an important message for young men.” Addressing the court, Rehtaeh’s mother, Leah Parsons, said that she doubted whether the convicted man felt any true remorse for his act, before invoking the memory of her daughter. “Her voice was not heard when she struggled to be heard,” Parsons said. “But it sure is now.” |