Spotting similarities in Jian Ghomeshi’s behaviour to other women, the third complainant testifying in his sexual assault trial decided to make a report to police about her own encounter with the CBC host back in 2003.

“I recognized a pattern because of what I had gone through,” the woman testified in court Monday. A fourth witness — court was not told the identity — will be called to testify later this week. “There was familiarity in some of the things I was hearing.”

Testifying as the second week of the high-profile trial got underway, the woman explained how, in 2003, she experienced an incident with Ghomeshi in a Toronto park after a cultural event. She said it happened while they were kissing.

“All of a sudden I felt his hands on my shoulders and his teeth . . . and his hands were around my neck and he was squeezing.” She said she had trouble breathing with his hands around her neck. Then, she said, he put his hand on her mouth, “smothering” her.

The woman told court she buried the event in her subconscious. There were reasons she did not come forward, she told court. She was unsure if it was something the justice system would consider serious; she was worried about how an allegation against Ghomeshi would affect a family member involved in the cultural scene; and she was worried about what people would think of her.

“It doesn’t take long for a girl to get a reputation of being hysterical,” she told Justice William B. Horkins.

Years later, on Oct. 26, 2014, when Ghomeshi was fired and other women, including Trailer Park Boys actor Lucy DeCoutere told their stories, she noticed what she described in court as similar behaviour towards women. Court previously heard from DeCoutere and one other witness who described alleged assaults by Ghomeshi. The woman testifying Monday told her story to the media first, then made a report to police.

A fourth woman who has made allegations will be heard in a separate trial in June.

Monday’s witness was, like the two previous complainants, subjected to a rigorous cross-examination by Ghomeshi defence lawyer Marie Henein, so rigorous that Crown attorney Michael Callaghan objected to a line of questioning he deemed “abusive.” The judge weighed in and the witness was given an opportunity to take a pause and answer the question again.

Henein took issue with the witness not telling police at previous under-oath interviews that in the days after the alleged assault in the park she had a sexual encounter with Ghomeshi at her home. The woman testified she gave Ghomeshi a “hand job” and afterward the then-CBC host fell asleep, and left her home shortly after. The woman disclosed the sexual encounter last week and made a new statement to police.

The woman told court that when she first spoke to police she only told them about things that made her “feel bad.” Asked if she was being deliberately misleading with police by not telling them about the sexual encounter at her home, she said “yes,” saying she was reluctant to tell detectives about the encounter because it was “embarrassing.”

“It’s a very disconcerting thing to have someone dig through your life,” the woman told court.

Asked to explain herself, the woman said that after the park bench incident she did her best to be with Ghomeshi only in public. She described her decision to have him back to her home as “an absolute misjudgement ... and one that a lot of women make.”

Henein shot back: “I don’t care about a lot of women.”

Ghomeshi’s defence took issue with communication between the woman and DeCoutere, who came forward publicly and became a bit of a lightning rod for other women making allegations. Court heard that the two exchanged 5,000 email and other messages between the day the story broke in the Toronto Star (Oct. 26, 2014) and Sept. 23, 2015.

At one point, the woman texted DeCoutere that Ghomeshi “choked me, smothered me, never hit.” Another time, the woman messaged DeCoutere, “Well, f---, you are honest to s--- my hero.”

Asked by the Crown attorney why she and DeCoutere had so much contact, the woman said that the two had a shared experience and “forged” a “bond” and a “support system.”

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Henein stopped short of suggesting the two women colluded, but she did take the witness through a series of messages they shared with Ghomeshi as the target. At one point they discussed a hope that the former CBC host would get fat and bald, and urinate in his bed.

“It’s time to sink this pr---,” she wrote to DeCoutere at one point.

Court heard a breakdown of the woman’s encounters with Ghomeshi. Throughout them, she said she went out with Ghomeshi again despite her reservations, because he was charming and she had begun to second-guess herself, thinking she might have misread the situation.

“I am notoriously known for giving second chances, and third chances,” she said.

After the alleged assault on the park bench, she said she felt belittled by Ghomeshi at a bar when, prior to them going home together, he told a New York journalist “we are not seeing each other; we are just f---ing.”

But she still went home with him, she said, because there was a “Jekyll-and-Hyde” thing going on.

By this point, there were “warning bells,” she said, but the final “bell” came at another party in Parkdale, when Ghomeshi told her that her best friend was manipulative, controlling and did not have her best interests at heart.

They left together in his car, but they had an argument about his comments, she said. Her last words to him before she got out of the car were: “You are f--ing crazy. Lose my number! Don’t ever call me again!”

She left for Vancouver the following day and was surprised to receive a phone call from Ghomeshi asking how her flight was. She says, at that point, whatever relationship they had was over and she could not believe he was calling again.

Court was presented with a handful of emails the woman sent to Ghomeshi after these events, in 2004 and 2005. In one, she opens by saying “hiya princess, nice to see you the other night.” In an email where she is wondering if he can “plug” an event she is involved in, she concludes, “still wanna have that drink sometime?”

Tuesday, while court waits for a witness from Nova Scotia who is snowed in, the judge will hear arguments over the admissibility of the witness.

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