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It was a case of domestic assault: A Vancouver woman had accused her Toronto ex-boyfriend of bruising her arm, confining her in a hotel room and stealing her cell phone.

And then, seemingly out of the blue, while on the witness stand Dzenita Omerovic commented on the attractiveness of the lawyer cross-examining her.

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“May I just say something?” said the woman to Toronto criminal defence lawyer Ines Gavran.

“Ok,” said Gavran, to which Omerovic replied, “You are beautiful.”

It may have seemed like an innocuous compliment — particularly given that Gavran happens to have been the 2013 Miss Canada.

But according to an Ontario Court of Justice judge it was evidence that Omerovic’s testimony could not be trusted.

“The record before me shows the complainant to be obsessive, occasionally vindictive, and insecure,” wrote Justice Joseph De Filippis in a late August decision that dismissed almost all charges against the defendant.