Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Hearing for judge Robin Camp - asked a sexual assault victim why she couldn't keep her knees together.

Robin Camp A hearing is to begin today into the future of a federal judge who asked a sexual assault complainant why she couldn't keep her knees together. The Canadian Judicial Council is to determine whether Justice Robin Camp should lose his job for the comment he made in 2014 while a provincial court judge in Calgary.

Court transcripts show he questioned the woman's morals, suggested that her attempts to fight off her attacker were feeble and described her as "the accused" throughout the trial. Camp acquitted 250 pound Alexander Scott Wagar of sexual assault, but the verdict was overturned on appeal and a new trial was ordered.
The 'judge' has indicated he wants to remain on the bench. It's alleged Camp's comments "reflected an antipathy" toward laws meant to protect vulnerable witnesses, engaged in "stereotypical or biased thinking" and asked the complainant questions that relied on "discredited, stereotypical assumptions".

The review committee will make recommendations to the full judicial council. If it decides Camp should be removed from the bench, the final decision lies with the federal justice minister.
“She went into the washroom to throw up, she’d been drinking a lot including absinthe and he came in and misbehaved,” is Camp’s dismissive, condescending description of an alleged sexual assault that included forced oral sex and vaginal penetration.

Camp asked the victim why she didn’t stop the attack: “why didn’t you just sink your bottom down into the basin so he couldn’t penetrate you?” and “why couldn’t you just keep your knees together?” “If you were … frightened you could have screamed" “Some sex and pain sometimes go together … that’s not necessarily a bad thing;” and “she knew she was drunk … is not an onus on her to be more careful.”

The judge’s legal team has indicated he will say sorry.
A married father of two adult sons and a daughter, Justice Camp went to law school in South Africa, and later moved to Calgary, where he passed law exams in 1998. Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservative government appointed him a judge in 2012. The federal Conservative government later appointed Camp to the Federal Court, where he is paid $314,100 a year.