A Canadian judge is standing trial for his jawdropping misogynistic comments to a teenage rape victim over a 2014 sexual assault case.
In news straight out of “we cant make this shit up” Canadian judge Robin Camp was promoted to the country’s Federal Court after presiding over a trial where he asked a rape victim “why cant you just keep your knees together?”
The judge made the gobsmacking comments to the 19-year-old victim, who claimed Alexander Wagar raped her over a bathroom sink at a party.
At one stage during the trial Camp suggested “why didn’t you just sink your bottom down into the basin so he couldn’t penetrate you?”
And then he berated her for not really trying hard enough to bring attention to her plight saying if she was “frightened you could have screamed.”
And when the victim claimed she experienced physical pain during the attack, Judge Camp came over all wise man: “Sex is very often a challenge. Sex and pain sometimes go together…that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
The victim admitted that she hated herself for letting Camp speak to her in that way adding “he made me hate myself and he made me feel like I should have done something… that I was some kind of slut.”
Mr Camp is set to appear in front of a panel of three judges and two senior lawyers. The allegations against him include using “stereotypical or biased thinking”, that his comments “reflected an antipathy” toward laws aimed at protecting vulnerable witnesses and that he asked the alleged victim questions based on “discredited, stereotypical assumptions” of how one should behave after a sexual assault” reports the BBC.
His lawyer Frank Addario said in a hearing “he is not perfect, but he is a good judge” and that “he has reformed in his thinking and is sorry for his failing.”
“The evidence will show Justice Camp, immediately after the complaint was lodged, apologized and took steps to interrogate his beliefs and to challenge his assumptions.”
Camp’s daughter Lauren-Lee Camp, who is also a victim of rape, wrote a letter to the panel in support of her father noting that while his comments were “disgraceful” he “tackled his disgrace directly” and “now speaks with a new kind of sensitivity and understanding”, reports The Globe And Mail
Camp is currently not allowed to hear cases until the panel reviews the case and make recommendations to the full judicial council.