Western Standard


EXCLUSIVE： Toronto Man Released 3 Times on Bail After Multiple Sexual Assault Charges

Mentioned
Erin Kendall Aaron

Episode Stats


Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A rapist has been let out on bail three times for the same crimes. These crimes were obstruction of justice, sexual assault, breaking bail conditions, and illegal confinement. Although they were not committed on the same night, they were all related to instances that happened that happened then. We have Erin Kendall, a survivor of this rapist, and she tells her story.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello, Western Standard viewers. Today we're talking about a case in Toronto where a rapist
00:00:13.200 has been let on bail three times for the same crimes. These crimes were obstruction of justice,
00:00:20.400 sexual assault, breaking bail, and illegal confinement. Although they were not committed
00:00:24.940 on the same night, they were all related to instances that happened then. We're having
00:00:29.520 Erin Kendall on, a survivor of this rapist, and she's going to tell her story.
00:00:37.720 Hi. Hi, Erin. So just to start off, tell us about sort of what happened that night and
00:00:46.960 what this person did and how they've been let out on bail so many times.
00:00:53.280 Yeah. So obviously I'm not going to get into details about the rape because that's not the
00:00:58.200 necessary or the point of this story, but we were at a party. It was on, it was to do with the Toronto
00:01:08.280 boat scene. And that night he was supposed to drive me home afterwards. And he did not let me get out
00:01:20.760 of the car, forced me to have sex with him. He raped me. And, but the story is more so about, you know, 1.00
00:01:29.320 what's been kind of going on in the legal end of things and particularly around bail. So I went,
00:01:37.160 I came forward to police. They took all the evidence, they arrested him. He was released, as far as I'm
00:01:42.840 where he was released on conditions. So he didn't even have a bail hearing. Um, and then not long after I
00:01:50.840 started getting messages from some people, um, and basically saying they wanted to help me, you know,
00:01:57.100 they heard what happened or they wanted to support me. I, I, I mean, I have the messages, but basically just,
00:02:02.440 it was a whole thing of manipulation. I, I met one of them. Um, and when I got out of my apartment,
00:02:10.840 she searched me for recording devices and proceeded to, uh, offer me money to drop the case.
00:02:19.720 And I, you know, got my way out of that situation. I, thankfully my survival instincts kicked in. So
00:02:26.120 I played along. Um, yeah, it was, you know, when you're literally in a conversation of with someone
00:02:34.520 trying to say, Oh, they're saying, how much is your voice worth? And it's like, you have to bargain
00:02:39.500 with this person. So they think you're taking them seriously. Like, um, anyway, so I reported
00:02:46.700 it to police that night. Um, he was arrested as well as one other person, um, and charged with
00:02:54.620 obstruction of justice and breaking bail conditions on his end. Um, and then in, I believe it was
00:03:02.420 September, um, another victim came forward, um, about being sexually assaulted the same night. Um,
00:03:10.580 just before me, um, we were all at that party together and he was arrested again. And again,
00:03:18.660 he got bail. So he's gotten bail three times for the same case. Um, it is all one big case and we are
00:03:24.980 going to a jury trial. Um, yeah. And his, yeah, his charges, he has two counts and these are all
00:03:32.820 whatever you want to call it, felony indictable charges. Um, two counts of sexual assault, two
00:03:38.100 counts of breaking bail conditions, two counts of obstruction of justice, and one count of legal
00:03:42.340 confinement.
00:03:42.900 Um, and in sort of the briefings that you've got in the communications that you've got,
00:03:50.900 have they referenced any specific laws that have been allowing him to get on, on bail
00:03:55.140 this many times?
00:03:57.060 Nope. I've been, you know, I've been frustrated with the whole situation. Um, and I've just sort
00:04:04.020 of been told, uh, basically nothing, there's nothing they can do. Like the, I have a support
00:04:10.900 worker. I have a, I have a VWOP worker. Um, yeah, there's nothing they can do. It's literally
00:04:17.300 not up to them, but you know, this is kind of what's a continual theme in Canada.
00:04:22.900 And from the perspective of a survivor, how do you feel the federal government and what has been called
00:04:31.380 as weak bail laws has impacted you in this scenario?
00:04:36.020 You know, I truly have an understanding so deep of why people don't come forward when they've been
00:04:43.540 sexually assaulted. Um, it's a horrible experience post, like the rape alone was horrible. I still
00:04:53.860 deal with nightmares. I still deal with severe PTSD from it. Um, and then the process of getting
00:05:00.980 justice for that has been also quite horrible. Um, you know, instead of, instead of someone who
00:05:09.540 is now been arrested three times for the same case being put away so that I can sleep at night and be
00:05:15.860 safe, I'm told have people track you. I'm told don't go anywhere alone. I'm told to take self-defense
00:05:22.020 classes. I'm told to carry my safe, like I have a little safety key chain that has like an alarm.
00:05:27.460 I'm told, I'm told to do all these things. When I'm, I'm the victim of this case, it's very confusing.
00:05:34.580 Um, and it really is no wonder why so many people don't come forward. Um, you know, and even in the,
00:05:42.180 the process of the prosecution, you know, you'll go months, years without hearing anything. Um,
00:05:48.660 um, and you know, it wasn't, it wasn't that long ago. It was a couple of months ago. Police showed
00:05:54.420 up at my door, um, basically to tell me, you know, your, your safety's at risk. Has he tried
00:06:00.020 to contact you? Has he tried to threaten you? Um, and yeah, it, that was basically all I was left with.
00:06:09.140 So then I had to advocate for myself. Thankfully, I spoke with the staff sergeant of my area.
00:06:13.700 Um, he was amazing. He was, he, he stayed on my phone with me for hours, walking me through
00:06:18.900 everything, trying to help me to feel safer. He actually had police patrol my house and work.
00:06:24.500 I even had to send a picture of this guy and his name to my work, um, on advice of the police,
00:06:31.700 so that if he did show up at my work to try and threaten me, they knew who he was and what to do.
00:06:36.180 I had to take down my social media. Like these are things that I've had to do to keep myself safe.
00:06:40.740 Um, while he's walking the streets, possibly doing this to another person. As we know,
00:06:45.540 this is a pattern, um, as there are already two victims.
00:06:48.740 And we saw about two weeks ago, uh, the combine, the combined efforts of the Liberals NDP and Block
00:06:57.540 voted down the three strikes and you're out conservative bill. This case would have been
00:07:02.740 all three strikes in one night. How does that make you feel?
00:07:07.300 Um, yeah, it's like, I really don't understand what is happening to this country. Like I genuinely
00:07:16.340 don't, I grew up here. I grew up with this being a great country. I grew up, you know, loving,
00:07:23.220 living in Canada. We were known for being nice. We were known for being very diverse. We were known.
00:07:28.340 Now we're the laughing stock. Um, and I don't think that citizens are considered when people
00:07:35.620 are making decisions. Um, you know, I, like I, I'm genuinely a little bit speechless here because
00:07:43.700 it's, if someone has committed a crime and has been arrested three times, then I just, there's no logic
00:07:53.860 there. Why would you not want people who have been arrested three times to keep getting bail?
00:08:00.100 So what they can keep going a fourth, fifth, sixth time it's, it almost feels like they want criminals
00:08:05.380 on the street.
00:08:08.660 Thank you so much, Erin. Is there anything else you'd like to share that you're comfortable talking about?
00:08:12.260 I, I just wanted to, you know, if anybody is struggling with this and they're, they're dealing
00:08:22.020 with this process of, you know, you've come forward or, or you've been in a situation where you were
00:08:28.580 assaulted and you're thinking about coming forward. Yes, this whole thing is horrible,
00:08:35.140 but it, it's a hundred percent worth it to me because if I drop this case now, you know,
00:08:42.260 I've been told that most of these delays are due to the defense, um, around going to trial.
00:08:48.420 And I've actually been told that that can be an intimidating factor of defense so that they
00:08:53.300 keep dragging it out and dragging it out so that you get sick and tired of it and drop the case.
00:08:58.900 And I don't let them win like that. I have, you know, it's, they've already tried to offer me money.
00:09:05.780 Um, they've already tried to, to scare me. They've already tried to make this go on as long as they
00:09:11.300 possibly can. Um, I don't know how this is all allowed, but somehow it is. Don't let them win.
00:09:19.460 Thank you so much for your time, Aaron. And thank you for speaking out, uh, for the Western Standard.
00:09:27.060 This is Jeremy Borg.