Authors: Bill Rowe
My face burned with chagrin at the condemnation of my mother as a self-serving
coward. Rosie turned to me, but I could not look at her. Murray Dylan rose to
cross-examine: “Miss Pretty, are you a lesbian?”
“Objection,” shouted Lucy Barrett. “Totally irrelevant and extremely
prejudicial.”
“Miss Pretty’s sexual orientation is relevant,” said Dylan, “because her
particular sexual bias has coloured, twisted, and distorted her
view of Dr. Rothesay’s role at that meeting. It goes to her credibility.”
“It would be scandalous,” said the judge, “to allow a witness’s sexuality,
heterosexual or homosexual or neutral, to be the basis of his or her
credibility. Objection sustained.”
“Let me come at it another way, then,” said Dylan. “Miss Pretty, were you
dismissed as a teacher in Vancouver?”
“Suspended, and I was reinstated after arbitration.”
“Why were you suspended?”
“Because of something I said to a group of grade twelve women in an
extracurricular course I was giving on feminism.”
“Women? Grade twelve? How old were they?”
“Seventeen, some eighteen, all young women.”
“Well, don’t be shy about it now, all of a sudden. What did you say to these
teenage girls?”
“I said that every act of sexual penetration by a man of a woman was a
violation of her physical integrity, whether she consented to the particular act
or not. It was merely another element in the male sex’s systemic violence
against women. Some parents heard about it and complained to the board that I
was trying to turn their daughters into man-hating lesbians.”
“And you were suspended. Rather understandably. On what basis were you
reinstated to your teaching job?”
“The arbitrator ruled that what I had said was a well-known, if radical,
position in the literature of feminism and therefore entirely acceptable for
presentation to mature students, but that in the future I must also present
other views of the matter, even contrary ones, in order to provide the balance
necessary for developing minds.”
“Was what you said to those girls your own personal belief regarding voluntary,
consensual sex between a man and a woman?”
“I believe that the physical evolution of the human sexes is stunted and
incomplete, which has led to extremely unfair, violent consequences to the
female. And I choose not to participate. A comparison would be the case of
dolphins whose sexual evolution has reached the point where a group of males
will corner a female in a shoal and repeatedly gang-rape her. That is so-called
normal sex for dolphins. And perhaps most female dolphins accept it as such. But
if I were a female dolphin I would not accept it, even though I might not be
able to choose to be a non-participant. As a female human being I can so choose
and I choose
no
.”
“So a woman who consents to or actively invites sexual
intercourse with a man is automatically a victim of male violence, even though
she may like what she is doing and may even, dare I say it, consider it to be an
act of profound love between them?”
“What you just described is exactly what happened to Rosie, isn’t it? As an
exploited young girl, she thought Rothesay was committing acts of love, but does
she or anyone else now doubt that they were acts of terrible violence against
her?”
“I will thank you, Miss Pretty, not to assume for yourself the role of judge
and jury. Those alleged acts are by no means established as fact. Answer me
this. Do you hate men?”
“I hate what nature requires them to do as men. I would pity them if I did not
pity women, who are on the nasty receiving end of their nature, even
more.”
“And do you not think that your view of men prejudiced your interpretation of
Dr. Rothesay’s role at that meeting?”
“I know what I saw and heard. I am able to be objective.”
“Of course you are. No further questions.”
THE FIRST WITNESS FOR
the defence was Gladys Sharpe, my mother.
When Murray Dylan called her to the stand, she stood there rather defiantly. His
questions established that she considered herself a friend of Rosie and was
appearing as witness for the defence, unwillingly and solely because she’d been
subpoenaed.
“Mrs. Sharpe, did you ever have suspicions that Rosie O’Dell was being sexually
abused by an adult?”
“Yes, when she was twelve.”
“By whom?”
“I suspected Dr. Heathcliff Rothesay.”
“Did you tell anyone of your suspicions?”
“I discussed them with my husband and we decided I should have a meeting with
her principal, Mr. Abbott.”
“Is it possible your son, Rosie’s boyfriend, could have overheard your
discussions with your husband?”
“I suppose it’s possible. Anything’s possible.”
“Did you tell Mr. Abbott or Miss Pretty at the meeting?”
“My fears came out during our meeting, yes.”
“Do you know if Dr. Rothesay or Rosie’s mother became aware of your
suspicions regarding Dr. Rothesay?”
“Yes, at their later meeting with Mr. Abbott and Miss Pretty. Her mother, Nina,
terminated our friendship afterwards, accusing me of going behind her back and
betraying her.”
“Mrs. Sharpe, did you tell anyone else of your suspicions at the time?”
“At the hospital where I was a head nurse, I mentioned to some nurses at a
coffee break my fears that a daughter of a friend of mine might be being
sexually abused. You see, we were trained to watch for such occurrences.
Occasionally we came across a young patient who was suffering abuse.”
“How many nurses did you tell?”
“There were five nurses there that day, perhaps six.”
“Did the other nurses present know of your friendship with Rosie’s mother and
that she was the wife of Dr. Rothesay?”
“Yes, they did.
“To recap, and tell me if I am incorrect in any particular, Mrs. Sharpe, when
Rosie was in grade seven you say you told your suspicions to your husband and to
her principal and teacher. And her mother and stepfather learned of your
suspicions, as did five or six nurses, all of whom knew of your friendship with
the Rothesays, and it’s quite possible your son heard your discussions about the
house. At least ten people in all. Is that correct? Let the record show that the
witness is nodding in the affirmative. Would you be surprised if as a result of
all this awareness in her own home and around town, Rosie herself got wind of
your sexual abuse suspicions concerning—?”
“Objection,” said Barrett. “He’s leading his own witness about something she
has no direct knowledge of in any event.”
“Sustained,” said the judge. “The jury will ignore all of that last question.”
Ignore it? I thought. How could they ignore it? Obviously they had to get
Dylan’s point clearly.
“Now, madam, these suspicions of yours that Rosie was being sexually abused,
what were they based on?”
“My knowledge of Rosie over many years and my experience as a children’s nurse
in a hospital.”
“And with that you zeroed in on Dr. Rothesay?”
“It was an educated intuition based on Rosie’s appalling physical and emotional
condition at the time.”
“Kind of a gut-feeling? Based on the look of the girl, you jumped to the
conclusion Dr. Rothesay was sexually abusing her?”
“Objection,” said Lucy Barrett. “He is both leading his own
witness and cross-examining her all in the one question.”
“Sustained,” said the judge.
“Well, what else besides your educated guess led you to leave the impression
with ten or a dozen people that Dr. Rothesay was sexually abusing his own
stepchild?”
“It was a suspicion I had, a fear, nothing else. I merely discussed it with
several professional persons to try to ascertain what I should do. I didn’t
spread it about wholesale.”
“But surely you would not be surprised to learn that, as a result of ten or
twelve people being told directly of your suspicions, many other people also
might have got wind of them by way of rumour, and that Rosie herself—?”
“Objection. We’ve been through this, My Lady. It’s a leading question and
purely speculative and hypothetical.”
“Sustained yet again, Mr. Dylan,” said the judge.
“In more recent times, Mrs. Sharpe, this year, for example, did you tell anyone
else of your original suspicions.”
“I told Rosie after she came to me with her allegations.”
“What’s your understanding of why Rosie came to you of all people, her
boyfriend’s mother, with her story about Dr. Rothesay?”
“I had offered my son help earlier. I could see clearly that something was
wrong from the way he was behaving. But of course mainly there was the other
inform—”
“Oh, another of your famous gut-feelings?”
Lucy jumped up. “My Lady, he persists in cross-examining his own witness. If he
wants to have her declared a hostile witness, let him be straightforward enough
to try. Otherwise let him have the decency to stop sneaking what he’d like her
to say through the cellar door of his own mouth.”
“I take it that was an objection, Ms. Barrett,” said Judge Ledrew. “If so, it
is sustained. Mr. Dylan, a barrister of your standing knows better than
that.”
My mother was determined to finish her point: “It was not just my gut-feeling.
There was other information from England that—”
Dylan spoke over her. “I must stop you right there, Mrs. Sharpe. Madam Justice
Ledrew has banned all reference to any such information as being utterly
prejudicial to Dr. Rothesay’s right to a fair trial.”
Lucy was on her feet again, objecting: “He asked the witness why Rosie
came to her, and he won’t let her give the reason why. He can’t
have it both ways and—”
Dylan tried to interject, but the judge held up her hands and waved both
counsel off. “There will be no reference by anyone to that, ah, foreign
information in this trial. Mr. Dylan, please stop asking questions that lead
inexorably to it.”
“Thank you, My Lady. Now, Mrs. Sharpe, after your meeting several years ago
with Mr. Abbott and Miss Pretty, did you pursue your original suspicions any
further at that time?”
“No, except to watch Rosie’s condition.”
“Why not?”
“Mr. Abbott and Mrs. Pretty concluded there was no concrete evidence, but also,
they both told me that Dr. Rothesay himself had suggested going to the police if
anyone seriously suspected abuse of Rosie, so I decided to suspend my suspicions
and see how Rosie did, and she did well.”
“Yet, a few years later, there you were again, encouraging Rosie herself with
your ancient suspicions?”
Lucy Barrett let out a roar. “This is disgraceful, My Lady. He knows why she
was telling the complainant this year, but she can’t say why in this court
because—”
“One more word,” said Dylan, “and I shall move for a mistrial.”
The judge intervened and told them to approach the bench. There, I could tell,
all three were arguing about the charges in London, which my poor mother had not
been allowed to mention to explain herself. Dylan returned to his place with a
little smirk. “Thank you, Mrs. Sharpe. No further questions.”
Lucy Barrett rose to cross-examine: “Mrs. Sharpe, didn’t both Mr. Abbott and
Miss Pretty tell you that Dr. Rothesay said, if he went to the police, he would
ask for a wide-ranging investigation of teachers and adult friends of Rosie’s to
find out who might be abusing her?
“Yes, I was told he mentioned something like that.”
“Did you discuss that with your husband?”
“Yes I did.”
“And what was his reaction?”
“He was somewhat upset, naturally, that even though he was completely innocent,
he might be tainted professionally by being drawn into a police
investigation.”
“Was he upset at you?”
“Maybe a little. After all, it was my friendship with Rosie’s
mother that had brought all this on.”
“Did your husband say anything about your friendship with Rosie’s mother, as it
relates to this?”
“He said that my great friend Nina was really making progress with her
husbands: First she married a pathological drunk in Joyce O’Dell and now with
Heathcliff Rothesay she had advanced to a pathological child molester.”
“Objection!” Murray Dylan was on his feet, bellowing like a gored bull. “My
Lady, this is intolerable. The prosecutor is trying to slip in every possible
prejudicial characterization of my client in every possible sly way that she can
contrive.”
“I don’t know what the witness is going to say, My Lady. She’s not my witness.
This is cross-examination, and I’m trying to focus on her frame of mind and
considerations at the time she thought the complainant was being sexually
abused.”
Dylan replied, “She may not be your witness, but you did interview her with a
view to her fitness as a witness for the prosecution, and now you are stooping
to using what you gleaned from her to prejudicially undermine Dr. Rothesay’s
character in a weasel-like fashion.”
“Objection. Mr. Dylan is abusing this process. I can interview whom I like as
prospective witness and he has no right to discuss before the jury who I may or
may not—”