In a perfect world, Marlee Liss imagined, the man who raped her wouldn’t go to jail.

Instead, he would go through rehabilitation and listen while she described the hurt he caused; she would get answers to her questions and find out what in life led him to such a heinous act.

For almost three years since the rape took place, this was just her dream.

This summer, the dream came true.

Liss, 24, participated in what may be one of Canada’s first sexual assault cases to rely on restorative justice instead of adjudication by the courts.

By all accounts, it was a huge success and now Liss is taking up the banner for the legal system to normalize this more “human” approach to sexual violence. She hopes speaking out will pave the way for others to avoid the “brutal” court system — and may even change the way men treat women.

Restorative justice is a process with Indigenous roots that focuses on addressing harm caused by crime, while holding the offender responsible.

Usually, a qualified facilitator brings together survivor, offender and those impacted to focus on the survivor’s experience and decide on a collective plan going forward.

Under Canada’s Victim Bill of Rights, victims have the right to be informed about this option, but Liss said she had to fight for the information and for the right to take that approach rather than go to court.

It has been a long journey from the night in August 2016, when a stranger at a downtown bar took away her innocence and the activist in her surfaced.

She was a student at Ryerson and became separated from her friends.

Tipsy from the night’s celebration of a new school year, she accepted help to her friend’s home, where she planned to sleep, from a young man at the bar. Before she knew it, she said, he had pulled down her pants and assaulted her, for roughly four hours.

At the hospital later, she was given two options — seek a conviction, or let it go.

“They were both lose-lose options, both bleak. I knew that if I reported, I’d have to go through this painful process of re-traumatizing. But I didn’t want to just drop it, as if nothing happened.”

Reluctantly, she agreed to go forward with charges.

For months afterwards, as she awaited the preliminary trial date, she curled up on her mother’s couch, at times, suicidal.

Barbie Liss tried to stay strong for her daughter, but secretly, she seethed.

“I’d never met a kid who loved life like Marlee did. She was this little ball of sunshine. He stole that. How dare he?”

For a long time, it was just the two of them, mother and daughter, cocooned from the world.

“Your instinct is to want to pick her up and hold her and make it better but at the beginning she didn’t even want to be touched,” Barbie said. “She wasn’t talking, couldn’t get her thoughts out.”

But through that “complete brokenness,” Marlee knew she would make something positive from the pain.

“This is bigger than me,” she told her mom. “I’m going to go from victim to survivor to activist one day.”

“It was like a tug of war between broken and strong,” Barbie recalls. “She knew there was purpose behind it even though there were days she struggled to even want to be here anymore.”

One day, they were sitting on the couch and she had a far-off look in her eyes.

“Where are you, babe?” Barbie asked, and Marlee said “I think I want to just jump off a bridge but I don’t want to land. I just want to float.”

Instead of revealing her shock, Barbie replied: “OK, jump, but take my hand, I’ve got you and I’m not going to let you fall and when you’re ready, I’m going to pick you up and we’re going to figure this out together.”

“And we did,” Barbie said. “We totally did.”

The preliminary trial, in early winter, brought Marlee face-to face with her attacker for the second time.

It was brutal, Marlee said.

“The assailant doesn’t have to take the stand at all, but I had to — for five hours. It gets really twisted, like, who’s on trial, here? They get you all confused . . . invasive, personal questions asked by this middle-aged man, and you have to answer or you’re considered not co-operating.”

It would be a year before it went to criminal trial. During that time, Marlee wrote poetry, studied social work and spirituality, and worked on climbing out of the dark hole.

In November, she received a subpoena. Her heart sank. She was expected to appear in court in early winter, 2019.

“I’d come so far, healed so much, now I had to bring it all back.”

Marlee didn’t believe sending the assailant to prison would be productive in any way. Her social work studies showed criminals are released from prison more angry, more violent, more likely to rape.

If only there were a way to find out answers to her question “why” and tell him how much pain he had caused. If only there were a way to forgive and understand without condoning, a kind of “rapist rehab” that would teach her assailant about consent and how to be respectful to women.

She searched the internet and found The Forgiveness Project — a Toronto non-profit that works with ex-convicts, mentors and prison programs on the power of forgiveness — and she learned about restorative justice (RJ).

Tara Muldoon was eager to help.

The founder and executive director of The Forgiveness Project had been through something similar in September 2017 — had just wrapped up a business meeting at a local restaurant, was completing paperwork, when a stranger assaulted her.

There was video footage, it looked like a slam-dunk case, but Muldoon had worked with the court system for years and knew the trial process would be re-traumatizing.

She wanted closure, acknowledgment, an apology. It never came.

When her assailant was given a chance to speak to the court, instead of accepting blame “he just wanted to talk about how hard this was on himself. In the end, he got probation. It was a really hard blow for me.”

Through The Forgiveness Project, she helps others understand the complexities of trauma and forgiveness.

Muldoon could see Marlee was breaking new ground. She directed her to Jeff Carolin, a Toronto lawyer who believed in the restorative approach.

Carolin told Marlee restorative justice has been done for smaller crimes — shoplifting youth, for example — but he didn’t know of any case in the conventional justice system involving an adult male and sexual assault victim where the restorative process replaced adjudication by the courts entirely — no trial, no guilty plea.

He thought it was worth a try.

At first, the Crown balked.

“It was almost like they thought I had Stockholm syndrome, it was very condescending ‘oh sweetie, you know he did a bad thing, right?’ But oh my God, who in this room knows more than I do that he did a bad thing! It’s not that I think rape is OK, it’s that I think it is so not OK that we need to consider innovative options because what we’ve been doing is clearly not working.”

Crown attorney Cara Sweeny reflected on her 20 years prosecuting sexual assault cases.

“In so many ways it’s a really horrible process, unlike any other cross examination. There is this need to destroy them in order for the defence to work. Any insecurity, they seize on . . . I decided we should let Marlee drive the (restorative) process and see how it played out.”

When Marlee got word the trial was adjourned and the judge had given the green light to restorative justice, she and her mom wept tears of joy.

“It was one of the most meaningful calls of my life.”

The process would be designed by trained, volunteer mediators at Toronto’s St. Stephen’s Community House. It would begin with the assailant going through months of therapy, ensuring he understood the meaning of consent, accepted some responsibility, and was prepared to participate.

The circle was convened in late summer, 2019, and involved those who were impacted: Marlee, her mother and sister. The assailant and a friend would be there, the Crown attorney, Marlee’s lawyer and two mediators.

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“It was intense,” Marlee recalls. “I’d been wanting this for so long. Lots of crying the night before, I was shaking. But when I got there, there was tea and coffee, we could take breaks. It was such a self-care environment, such a contrast to the court system.”

They’d scheduled three hours for the process, but could take as long as they needed. Marlee’s circle lasted eight hours.

Each person would be given a “talking shell” to hold and time to talk about what brought them there, beginning with Marlee’s sister, Emily Liss, 29, who spoke about the impact her sister’s rape had on her.

“I was always very protective of her as my little sister, and to see that some harm could come to her like this took the colour out of my world.”

Marlee’s description of what she described as the “second rape” — the court system — filled Emily with disbelief and anger and sent her spiralling into depression and anxiety.

“They were horrible to her. The system is designed to wear the victim down. They present these triggering, awful, violent questions about the most awful experience you’ve been through in your life.”

The restorative circle was completely different, she said.

“It was in one way the craziest experience of my life, but at the same time, it felt so normal and human and one of the most sensible things.”

During Marlee’s first turn in the circle, she spoke for an hour.

“I wanted to share my grief, to clear confusion, to express how much he hurt me and to have his eye contact when I said that.”

She told her assailant after the assault, she found photos of him on Facebook with his mother.

“I told him that it blew my mind. Like, you have a mom! We have this narrative of rapists as monsters hiding in a bush, but they were babies once . . . I told him he was traumatized too by our society, not able to cry, to show emotions . . . I could say all that. Finally, my voice mattered. It was such an empowering, safe space.”

Defence lawyer Carolin spoke about his own journey to be a better man in patriarchal society that lends itself to gender-based violence.

In an interview later, Carolin said Marlee’s restorative justice process was “exceedingly rare” — but shouldn’t be.

“Everything in our (justice) system is set up to deny, minimize, not tell the truth. Clients may have remorse, but the focus is adversarial, on beating the case . . . This kind of meeting, with hope and healing, is more aligned with the world I want to see.”

Marlee’s mom took the talking shell next. She described her disappointment and devastation seeing her child hurt. As she spoke, Marlee watched tears fill her assailant’s eyes.

Next came Crown attorney Sweeny.

“I try to do my best in a trial to ensure the victim is protected and it’s a very safe experience, but no matter what the outcome, it’s demeaning, depersonalizing,” she said. “They often say it’s worse than the rape itself.”

Later, Sweeny said she believes the assailant is a changed person.

“He learned something that day. I’m confident he will never do this again. We have created a person who will go forth and be a better person. And it has changed me, in terms of how I want to go forward.

“To be part of a (restorative justice) process where the focus is on healing and feelings and forgiveness, was just incredible. I’d love us to support more of this.”

When the assailant’s friend took the talking shell, “he was literally sobbing,” Marlee recalls.

“He said, ‘I’ve never cried in front of people. I was in the military, we don’t cry. But I’ve never seen anything like this. In all my life, all my schooling and career, I’ve never learned as much as I did today.”

Then the assailant spoke.

He shared how he had initially repressed the “encounter,” as he called it, but later, when someone close to him disclosed they had been sexually assaulted, his memories “unlocked.”

Looking her in the eyes across the circle, he said, “I remembered clearly what happened, that I did sexually assault you. I’m very sorry for the pain that I caused. I know I can’t take it back, but I hope being here today will help in any way it can.”

“I just burst into tears. I didn’t realize I needed to hear that so badly,” Marlee said. “I let go of things that day that could have haunted me for the rest of my life.”

The talking shell went around the circle three times and by the end, the assailant vowed to make something meaningful from the experience.

He asked permission to shake Marlee’s hand. She granted it.

Now Marlee has a new dream, that one day this option will be available for any victim who chooses it.

To that end, she and her mother have launched the Re-Humanize Foundation, beginning with an IndieGoGo campaign, that will advocate for a justice system focused on addressing harm, rather than punishment.

This isn’t for everyone, she says.

“For some, sitting in a sentencing circle with your abuser not an option. But we need to know it’s is an option.

“I want survivors to receive more than two lose-lose options — court (re-traumatizing) or silence (disempowering). I want them to receive this third option of restorative justice — a pathway that bridges justice with healing.”