11.18.2014 09:59 PM

Why didn’t the NDP’s Craig Scott, a lawyer, report a crime?

Quote:

“Craig Scott, a New Democrat MP and former law professor, said to the Liberals that what he was told happened to one of his female colleagues could be defined as an alleged sexual assault, multiple sources have told The Canadian Press.”

Really?

Scott is a lawyer. He is an officer of the court. He has an obligation to report a serious crime, if he believes a serious crime has been committed. He didn’t.

Why not?

8 Comments

  1. Michael says:

    What does it mean for something to be “defined” as an “alleged” sexual assault. Very cagey words meaning. A lawyer, indeed.

    (Indeed, he was my professor many moons ago.)

  2. Peter says:

    Unless the safety of a child is threatened, I’m unaware of any obligation on the part of a lawyer or anyone else to report a crime after it occurred. Certainly not one he or she didn’t witness and was simply told about by a third party.

  3. B. Jesomanski says:

    Agreed — although, disturbingly, in the overall of what’s going on down there, misprision of treason is likely the root deficit of reportage. Also, it seems self-evident the role formerly held by police and jurists has passed to the party leaders. Justin Trudeau is now judge, jury, and executioner? Perhaps this is a necessary evil. Perhaps from a family that declared, “I grew up knowing that Fidel Castro had a special place among my family’s friends…Indeed, like my father, in private, Fidel is not a politician. He is more in the vein of a great adventurer or a great scientific mind. Fidel doesn’t really do politics. He is a revolutionary,” this is a profoundly disturbing turn of events. The first rule of intelligence is things aren’t what they seem. Assume these dirty dogs are dirty. But consider these dirty dogs had discovered dirty information that needed to be suppressed in dirty honey traps to protect dirty secrets – see treason above. We remain skeptical of all parties. It is quite simply a total lawless mess – vaguely ironic for what is ostensibly a legislature.

    • Michael Bussiere says:

      Trudeau is emphatically not judge, jury, and executioner! He handed the matter over to the only relevant authority possible, immediately.

  4. jeff316 says:

    Good question. Why didn’t Scott Simms?

  5. sezme says:

    Because as has been made abundantly clear over the past few weeks (even by you, Warren) a woman making criminal charges of sexual assault risks turning her own life upside down with limited prospects of justice, and therefore it remains her right to decide whether or not to proceed.

    If the incident is one where something where no evidence remains and there are no witnesses, and no other victims come forward (let’s say inappropriate touching – though I have no knowledge of this particular case) then the complainant will get precisely nowhere . Look at the public abuse Sarah Thompson received after accusing Rob Ford of groping her. Did anyone run to the police to file charges on her behalf that time? Were there no lawyers in the room?

  6. David Trottier says:

    Well, Warren is not formally a candidate in the riding yet but I guess the softening up of the opponent has begun.

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