It has been over a year since Mark Scott was charged with assault, following an alleged altercation with Oshawa lesbian couple Jane Currie and Anji Dimitriou.
The pair are still awaiting a decision on the case, which has been postponed once and now, according to Currie, has been subject to further delays.
“The crown attorney has put Anji and I on the stand and his other witnesses, but Mark Scott’s lawyer hasn’t done anything for his side of the case,” says Currie. “The day they were supposed to go on the stand, Feb 5, he called in sick.”
The defence team’s first day in court has now been pushed back to Mar 23.
Currie says the delays have been frustrating. A further frustration is that while Currie and Dimitriou’s lawyer must make all of the prosecution’s evidence available to the defence team, the defence is under no similar obligation. This means that the couple cannot prepare themselves mentally for what might happen next in court, because they have no insight into Scott’s case.
“I don’t know what his alleged evidence is. I don’t know who his next witnesses are who are going to be called to the stand in March,” says Currie.
An early blow to Currie and Dimitriou was the decision by Durham Police not to prosecute the alleged assault as a hate crime. Currie agrees that what happened does not fit the narrow definition of a hate crime in the Criminal Code, but suggests that this section of the Code is deficient.
As the case drags on, Currie and Dimitriou are forbidden to discuss the court proceedings in any detail with one another, or with their friends and supporters. They have not even been allowed in the courtroom during one another’s testimonies.
“It’s in case there’s a dispute in the evidence,” Currie explains. “We can’t discuss what’s been said in the courtroom.”
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