Pamela Cross
Appearances
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S31 E4: Hello powerful woman | The Banned Teacher
I think it's an important story. I think what happened to you was a complete miscarriage of justice. But we're not giving up, so we'll see where this goes.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S31 E4: Hello powerful woman | The Banned Teacher
I suppose as a lawyer, I shouldn't say what I'm about to say, but I'm going to say it. I don't encourage women to report to the police because I don't think the system works well for them. If a woman wants to do it, I will support her and help her function in that system. But if Pamela was sexually assaulted tomorrow?
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S31 E4: Hello powerful woman | The Banned Teacher
It's kind of like a funnel system, if you will. We have like up at the top, at the big part of the funnel, we have every sexual assault in Canada. And then really quickly, it narrows down.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S31 E4: Hello powerful woman | The Banned Teacher
Then the police have a decision to make. Will they or won't they lay a charge? And they do not lay a charge every time somebody reports. Then the Crown decides whether or not to proceed with a prosecution. So they can dump a case there. The funnel gets narrower. let's say the Crown decides to proceed with a prosecution, then they have their Crown resolution meetings with the defense lawyer.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S31 E4: Hello powerful woman | The Banned Teacher
The charge may be reduced. There might be a guilty plea. There might be an acquittal.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S31 E4: Hello powerful woman | The Banned Teacher
I'm going to be super careful here and say again that It seems to me, looking at it from outside, that the Crown might have been able to be more creative in what charges they decided to pursue. She turns to Anne-Marie. I want to help with this story. I think it's an important story. I think what happened to you was a complete miscarriage of justice.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S31 E4: Hello powerful woman | The Banned Teacher
But I don't want to be seen as the armchair coach saying, well, if I'd have been me, I would have done this. So I'm using that word might here. I hope that doesn't sound too wishy-washy, but it's easy to comment from the outside. It just seems to me... that there were some other opportunities that they made a decision not to pursue.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S31 E4: Hello powerful woman | The Banned Teacher
The criminal law was developed at a time when women weren't people. When women were largely seen as property of men, so if we want to go way back to British common law, if a woman was raped, it was seen as a crime against her husband or her father. Yet that's the charge they used in Anne-Marie's case.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S31 E4: Hello powerful woman | The Banned Teacher
In a different kind of system, maybe the judge might have said, well, you know what? I don't know at this point, like she can't prove that she didn't consent, but the defense also can't prove that she did. I'm willing to hear more, like let's let it go to a trial and let's hear all the evidence and,
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S31 E4: Hello powerful woman | The Banned Teacher
And maybe in a sexual assault case, criminal lawyers will, you know, pick at my house for saying this, but maybe we need a different standard of proof. Maybe we need the standard of proof that we use in civil law and in family law on a balance of probabilities. She's 16. He's her teacher. She's in a hotel room in a strange city. The adult has been buying the young people alcohol.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S31 E4: Hello powerful woman | The Banned Teacher
Well, let me speak more broadly about consent, if that's OK. I think the law is great that says consent has to be affirmative consent. It's not merely the absence of refusal, right? Silence is not consent. The other thing is, as girls, we're raised to be nice. We're fixers. Yeah, we just want it all to be okay. And so we comply. And complying is a lot different from consenting.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S31 E4: Hello powerful woman | The Banned Teacher
But it can look like it's consenting.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S31 E4: Hello powerful woman | The Banned Teacher
Yeah, you can't be multiply charged for the same act. But these are distinct acts over a period of time.