The counter-ranfield emerges
I am with our CBC team in London covering the trial.
At the break, I talked to the Criminal Defense lawyer Ingrid Grant, who is in Toronto and is not involved in this case, but is seeing it.
Grant says that during the interrogation, when Humphrey (lawyer of one of the defendants, McLeod) asked the broadcast if it was she who suggested that McLeod’s friends enter, that could have been the first glance of “the counter-career of defense” during this trial.
Grant says that the defense has a uphill battle that has to explain how a group of men appeared in the hotel room, particularly if it was not requested and unwanted.
The optics of how intimidating it would be for a lonely woman difficult, she says.
“So there will have to be an explanation for that, and there will have to be an explanation that does not suggest that it has not consented to this … I think the counter -Narrative has to be: ‘Well, she wanted other people to be there and are clearly trying to build on that'”.
During the interrogation, EM denied this suggestion of Humphrey
Grante warns that it is important to remember that the questions are not evidence, and less that someone testifies that EM asked McLeod to invite others to the room, so that is all.
