Such a bother, the whole ado of a public trial. We should proceed directly from charge to the lynching tree.

Apparently so when the charge is sexual assault, now deemed in some loud quarters as the most heinous wrong that can ever be committed against a person. Worse even than murder or grievous bodily harm or assault with a weapon.

The message this sends to women who have been sexually violated: You are accursed. You are defiled. You are ruined. You will never be whole and clean again.

You, female, are such a delicate creature that even reading Twitter dispatches from the courtroom could send you into an emotional tailspin. (“Daily coverage of the Jian Ghomeshi trial can be triggering. Here’s where to get help…”)

The conversation around sexual assault hasn’t changed — it’s regressed to medieval branding. Might as well burn an “X” into a woman’s forehead, if not her soul.

And Ghomeshi, because he’s a creep, because he’s accused of hurting and traumatizing women — introduced something called “hate f---ing” to the language of seduction — ought to be crucified, preferably upside-down in the manner of St. Peter.

That’s Ghomeshi, fallen media idol, who hasn’t been charged with rape, a word deleted from Canada’s Criminal Code but not from the rabble rhetoric of social media, nor the liturgy of “empowerment” gospels.

The axed CBC host is on trial for four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking, brought by three complainants. His alleged offences run the gamut from hair-yanking to punching to choking, all occurring within a sexual context: Kissing while standing, kissing while in a parked car, kissing while sitting on a park bench. Without the kissing, there would be no “sex” in these alleged sexual assaults.

It is indeed an ordeal to testify in a sex assault trial. But a significant part of that torment still arises from the exposure — in front of a judge, a jury, reporters, the public gallery — of an individual’s intimate horror. When you look upon her with pity, even revulsion for what she’s endured, you are diminishing the person. You are defining her by the violation.

The law is not to blame for deeply rooted perceptions. That is a cultural phenomenon. At times, during this first week of the Ghomeshi trial, it’s felt like being transported to witch-burnings in Salem or the safeguarding of women that justifies gender segregation — hiding, covering, enforced modesty — in misogynistic and zealously religious societies. Chattel or victim? Only the spin is different.

There is a growing movement to make it easier for women to testify in sex assault cases by, essentially, crafting one justice system for males and another for females. It’s called reform but it would really be just another form of sequestering, with specialized courts hearing sex assault trials. That’s rating victims — my pain is more pronounced than yours, my emotional equilibrium more fragile than yours. I am frail and you, father court, must protect me especially.

Women are not frail, by definition. The first accuser who took the stand in the Ghomeshi trial wasn’t undone as a reliable witness because her mental constitution shattered under the distress of cross-examination. Defence lawyer Marie Henein, a.k.a. “traitor to her sex,” did not manhandle the witness, did not browbeat her, and certainly didn’t subject the woman to an unholy inquisition about her sexual history — a deplorable tactic which is permitted only upon the establishment (at the judge’s discretion) of admissibility criteria, though some judges extend inordinate latitude, as in the trial a year ago of two doctors where the alleged victim was kept on the stand for five days of excruciating cross.

There was no shaming, apart from the altogether proper discomfort that should ensue when a witness is caught in a demonstrable lie, or severely gerrymandering her evidence, or so deeply inconsistent with that evidence that it’s rendered worthless. While lapses of memory, fragmented recall, are common in the details, this woman’s bungles were extraordinary, her reversals and re-reversals stunning. Further, while the witness departed the proceedings as a sum-total negative for the prosecution, the core allegation — that she’d been punched three times by Ghomeshi — remained relatively unchallenged. In this judge-alone trial, it’s for Justice William Horkins to decide how much weight to give the woman’s testimony and assess her credibility.

But vigorous questioning is not only allowed, it’s essential to the authenticity of a trial. It should be hard to establish truths beyond reasonable doubt. No one should be able to just waltz into a courtroom and be (IbelieveyouIbelieveyouIbelieveyou) believed. It’s an adversarial system, no less so in sex assault trials. That’s the sturdiness, the integrity, of legal justice in Canada.

Only someone who’s never stepped into a court, never watched a trial, could think that Henein was unfair and bullying with the accuser.

Why should a sex assault victim be treated with suede gloves and not, say, Const. James Forcillo, who shot at a teenager nine times and killed him? Because you’re pre-assuming the virtue of the accuser — exclusively due to the charge — and the guilt of a most unsavory defendant.

Some of us still wait for verdicts. Quaint, I know.

More on thestar.com:

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Ghomeshi witness’s credibility erodes, but main allegation stands untouched

Next steps in the Ghomeshi trial are tricky for the Crown

Convicting Jian Ghomeshi will be hard — for good reason

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

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