"Why couldn't you just keep your knees together?"

Canadian judge sparks outrage over rape case.

A 19-year-old homeless woman accused a Calgary man named Alexander Scott Wagar of raping her over a bathroom sink at a house party, reports news.com.au.

During the trial, Alberta judge Robin Camp repeatedly called the victim “the accused” and asked her questions like: “Why couldn’t you just keep your knees together?” and “why didn’t you just sink your bottom down into the basin so he couldn’t penetrate you?”

He berated her for apparently not trying hard enough to escape the 115kg Wagar’s clutches, saying: “If you were … frightened you could have screamed”.

Justice Camp acquitted Wagar, dismissing the crime as a “misbehaviour” and even advised him how he could avoid getting himself into a similar pickle in the future.

“You’ve got to be really sure that she’s saying yes … so remind yourself every time that you get involved with a girl from now on and tell your friends, okay?”

The Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) was flooded with complaints, many of them from sexual assault survivors, and calls for the judge to be sacked.

“He believes his training, counselling and this process as a whole have left him better equipped to judge cases with the empathy, wisdom and sensitivity to social context to which all judges aspire,” the judge’s notice of response states.

“He now understands that some of his prior thinking was infected with stereotypical beliefs and discredited myths.”

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14 Comments

- - mom172741 said
  - 23 Aug 2016
    9:22 am
This is a prime example of what rape culture is. So disgusting that this judge was able to keep residing over these cases.

- - mom101628 said
  - 12 Aug 2016
    9:47 pm
And I thought we were in 2016 not 1970. That’s when those attitudes went out of vogue in the western world – only in the middle east do these ides still seem to have value.

- - hopefullyheidi said
  - 09 Aug 2016
    12:54 am
How disgusting that an individual in such a position (the judge) would behave in such a way and be so demanding towards the victim. No wonder these things go unreported and the perpetrators end up reoffending with idiots like that presiding over cases.

- - mom134803 said
  - 09 Jul 2016
    8:06 am
I can’t believe what I read here !! Unbelievable, no words for this judge…just sickening !
Being a sexual assault victim myself this comes close to home and it makes me very furious.

- - taynik46 said
  - 08 Jul 2016
    7:41 am
wow and people still wonder why the justice systems around the world fail vicitims – here is a prime example. How disgusting of him to berate her and tell her what she should have done to avoid being raped!

i bet if he had a daughter and it happened to her then it would be a totally different response!

Why is it that the ones that we entrust to do right by us, if we are violated by a criminal always seem to get it wrong!

- - mom90758 said
  - 07 Jul 2016
    2:51 pm
Absurd… This poor girl not only had to endure a rape, but also being accused by a judge in such a horrible way!

- - mom112217 said
  - 07 Jul 2016
    2:36 pm
The judge should be stood down.

- - BellaB said
  - 07 Jul 2016
    2:30 pm
The “freeze” reaction has been scientifically documented. To address just one part of his stupid comments…

- - wendy_adhofer said
  - 07 Jul 2016
    1:52 pm
And this is why women keep there mouths shut due to harsh ridicule the women should of gotten compo.

- - mum4107 said
  - 07 Jul 2016
    1:38 pm
He should be sacked. That is disgraceful

- - mom70876 said
  - 07 Jul 2016
    1:25 pm
this judge should be disbarred… but if they do that, then they open a whole can of appeals cases..

- - mom160421 said
  - 07 Jul 2016
    11:34 am
The judge is clearly not impartial and should not be doing this job.
- june11 replied
  
  07 Jul 2016 , 6:39 pm
  It makes me wonder what the Justice’s behaviour has been to able to justify making such a comment. If you were being held over a bathroom sink ywould you be able to move as you would like to. Shouting may have aggravated the man and him physically injured other sections of her body as well as raping her.
  Most parties have music (often loud) so what good would shouting have done?
- - Lori-Anne said
  - 07 Jul 2016
    10:50 am
This judge and man should be put in jail to be taken advantage of the big bubba type and then told why didn’t you scream or turn around so he couldn’t rape your arse. Women who are raped sometimes don’t scream or seem to comply if you will because they fear for their lives. I find this judge an utterly appalling man.