- VANCOUVER -- As he testified that he had been sexually assaulted by a female
family counsellor involved in the custody case over his son, Mark Tisdall
broke down in tears.
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- "I honestly believe that since I
was a man people say, 'You can't be sexually assaulted,'" Tisdall
said in B.C. Supreme Court last week.
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- Tisdall testified that Shirley Irwin,
a counsellor on government contract, sought sex in exchange for unauthorized
access to his infant son. He told court Irwin threatened to end his contact
with the boy if he revealed their relationship.
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- At one point, Tisdall said he awoke on
the couch at her home to find Irwin on top of him, sexually assaulting
him.
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- Tisdall may be right in assuming that
people would scoff at his allegations, suggests a psychologist who has
studied sexual assault.
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- "Often people, and this includes
judges, don't treat these as a ... simple sexual assault," says Linda
Coates, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Victoria.
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- While the number of female sexual predators
is dwarfed by the number of males, there are such women even though society
is loath to believe it, Coates says.
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- Last week, a Saskatchewan teacher was
convicted of sexually assaulting one of her female students more than a
decade ago.
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- And in Vancouver last November, a man
described three years of abuse at the hands of his female teacher.
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- Citing the case of Seattle teacher Mary
Kay Letourneau, who has been jailed after bearing two children with a young
student, Coates says society often believes male victims "just got
lucky."
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- Lawyer Richard Fowler says such assumptions
may affect an investigation into the sexual assault of a man and in any
decision to press charges.
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- "If a man goes to the police and
says, 'I've been assaulted by a woman,' what do the police make of that?
Do they take it credibly?" he asks.
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- For that reason, Fowler says men may
be even less likely than women to come forward.
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- "A jury is going to be more sceptical
of a man making these claims than a woman making these claims."
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- Many people don't understand that sexual
assault does not necessarily mean forced sexual intercourse.
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- "It's a mental thing, not a physical
thing," Fowler says. The charge doesn't require "anything more
than touching in a sexual circumstance."
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- The recent examples of women accused
of assaulting men does not mean there are more female sexual predators
roaming the streets, Coates says.
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- "Any time a female is the perpetrator
is very, very rare," she says.
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- "Often what happens is the unique
cases are picked out for media attention. If we did a story about every
single man who sexually assaulted someone, there wouldn't be any room left
in newspapers."
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- Also, the number of victims willing to
step forward about sexual assault is increasing among both women and men.
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- Following Tisdall's allegations, the
executive director of the agency that employed Irwin, Ingrid Kastens, prepared
a report to guard against similar situations.
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- "Sexual harassment is commonly thought
to be perpetrated by males against females," the report says. "This
case is a good reminder that this is not always the case."
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- Irwin was fired from her job.
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- Tisdall, who was testifying in his former
girlfriend's lawsuit against Irwin, the agency that employed her and the
provincial Children's Ministry, has launched his own lawsuit.
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- He is seeking damages for depression,
anxiety, shame and embarrassment among other things.
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- His lawyer, Donna Turko wouldn't comment
on the pending case.
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- "He does not want the publicity
the Johnson case had received," she said.
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- No date has been set for Tisdall's case
to be heard. Testimony in Johnson's lawsuit continues today.
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- A default judgement was issued against
Irwin, who sent a letter stating she could not afford to attend the trial
or hire a lawyer. The trial will proceed to consider the liability of the
other parties.
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