One of Patrick Brown’s accusers received an award from CTV, the media company that first reported the allegations against the former Ontario PC leader, theToronto Sun has learned.

The woman, who CTV News chose not to name in their story, received a CTV Broadcast Journalism Award sometime during her time at university,

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She subsequently went on to work at a newspaper at the same time as Rachel Aiello, one of the two reporters who wrote the original story on Brown that alleged Brown plied the young women with alcohol and, in the case of the accuser who won the CTV award, kissed her without permission and effectively “sexually assaulted” her.

Both women are friends, according to social media posts.

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Brown’s lawyer, Mark Sandler, suggested to the Sun recently that the relationship should have been disclosed in the original story

“What I also found somewhat disturbing, and I’m not sure the whole story is out yet, is the relationship that existed between the second accuser and one of the key reporters on this story from CTV,” Sandler said.

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“CTV has said they’ve done some due diligence in this area,” Sandler said. “To be frank, I don’t see how they could have done any due diligence to leap to the conclusion that…the relationship wasn’t problematic.”

The broadcaster has insisted they “took steps before publication and broadcast to ensure there was no previous contact with any of the journalists that would influence the reporting” and, in response to a threatened lawsuit from Brown, said they “welcome the opportunity to defend our journalism in court.”

It’s believed the award is a cash prize awarded by CTV but the recipient is chosen by a professor within the university.

“Recipients of the annual Scholarship in Broadcast Journalism are chosen by Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication, with no connection to the journalism practiced by CTV News,” explained Matthew Garrow, a spokesman for CTV News. “The bursary is funded by CTV Ottawa affiliate CJOH TV.”

Brown has vehemently denied all the allegations against them, and said in a Facebook post that “CTV News fabricated a malicious and false report about me from two anonymous accusers.”

He took a lie detector test this week that concluded he was truthful about his version of events and has said he intends to sue CTV over the story.