Ontario MP blasts Ghomeshi trial, says justice system ‘continues to fail women’

A Facebook rant by New Democratic Party MP Charlie Angus is drawing attention from across Canada after he criticized how the alleged victims of former CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi are being treated during the high-profile trial, claiming the justice system “continues to fail women.”

On Wednesday night, Angus, 53, wrote just hours after the trial heard evidence from a fourth witness that “Jian flourished as a predator” while at the CBC and suggested the focus should be on Ghomeshi rather than the credibility of the witnesses.

“What did I learn from the trial? 1) That a woman who remembers being beaten is not considered credible because she didn’t know the make of his car.”

The first witness, who cannot be named due to a publication ban, said in court that Ghomeshi had a “bright yellow car that looked like a Beetle.” Upon cross-examination, Ghomeshi’s lawyer Marie Henein pointed out that the former radio host did not own the yellow Volkswagen Beetle until months after the alleged attack.

Ghomeshi, 48, has pleaded not guilty to four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcome resistance by choking. He acknowledged in 2014 that he engaged in rough sex acts, but said it was consensual.

READ MORE: Jian Ghomeshi’s Facebook post on why he believes CBC fired him

The MP also laid into Ghomeshi’s wealth and his ability to hire “lawyers known as Hannibal Lecter for their ability to take sexual assault witnesses apart.”

Last October, Toronto Life magazine ran a profile of Henein where one of her clients, former attorney general Michael Bryant, described the lawyer as someone who “seemed to channel” the cannibalistic serial killer.

Even though the MP said he had known Ghomeshi “casually,” Angus ended his rant saying “that nobody close to Jian even pretends he is innocent, and somehow this isn’t an issue — the women are.”

Closing arguments in Ghomeshi’s trial begin Thursday.