Support Survivor in her Fight for Justice
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**UPDATE** While Elisha has had an amazing team of lawyers step up and take her case Pro Bono, there are still significant costs that Elisha will have to bear for the upcoming trial. The first two scheduled trials, both of which were cancelled at the very last minute after being fully prepared for, cost Elisha over $100 000, which Elisha remains in debt for. That amount is not including costs for Elisha’s recovery, lost work, or the next scheduled trial.
The estimated expenses for the upcoming trial are at minimum
$30 000, which includes:
Medical and Psychological Reports and Expert Testimony - minimum
$10 000
Economic Reports and Expert Testimony - minimum $5000
Administrative costs related to trial minimum - $5000
Lost wages for trial prep and a 3 week trial - minimum $10 000
Elisha still requires a great deal of emotional and financial support to get through what is hopefully the final stage of this six-year legal battle. Please help by donating and sharing the GoFundMe. Sexual assault cases, whether criminal or civil, rarely reach trial, for a multitude of reasons that are detailed further below ⬇️ The importance of completing this legal journey goes far beyond one case. Our entire justice system is severely behind and deficient in holding offenders accountable, and in providing justice for sexual assault survivors, due to a lack of precedent setting judgements and case law. Every case that goes to trial and ends in a judgment moves us all forward.
Please read the article written by investigative journalist Jane Skrypnek of Black Press Media, about Elisha's long battle for justice, and the recently canceled trial due to the judge shortage in BC.
Since the article, Elisha has had a highly experienced and compassionate team of lawyers take her case Pro Bono. She will still need to pay for additional court costs, such as expert reports and expert witnesses, etc, and she is still over $100 000 in debt for her legal costs so far, but this means Elisha will not be forced to represent herself in court, nor will she be forced to communicate with the defendant.
From article:
Please read the article, as it shines a light on a justice system in crisis, and it explains how the judge shortage in BC profoundly adds to the almost insurmountable barriers to justice that survivors of sexual assault are already faced with.
She Sought Justice for Sexual Assault - BC's judge shortage became her battle
Hi, my name is Chantal Michaud, and I am raising money on behalf of my dear friend Elisha Bonnis. Many of you know her as Elisha Tatiana, as that is the name she has used when performing stand-up comedy. Elisha has also been a much-loved elementary school teacher for 25 years.
Elisha has chosen to make her name public for a few reasons. Firstly, she knows she has nothing to be ashamed of. Secondly, because she wants to break through the imposed silence that almost always accompanies victims of rape. Elisha recognizes that she is in a position of privilege to have even gotten this far, and therefore feels a responsibility to speak publicly and openly on behalf of herself and all other survivors.
Elisha also feels that it is important to show her son that she will stand up for herself and that she will address the damage that has been done to not only herself, but to her son, her family and her friends who love her.
In December 2014, Elisha was raped on her birthday by a person she knew.
In February of 2018, she reported the sexual assault to the VPD Sex Crimes Unit.
*6% of sexual assaults are reported to police
*1-2% of sexual assaults committed by a person known to the victim are reported to police
* Victims sexually assaulted by someone they know are far less likely than those victimized by a stranger to see their assailant go to court after a charge is laid (47% versus 64%)
Elisha was profoundly hesitant to report, as she was aware of the many negative and heartbreaking experiences survivors of sexual assault experience after reporting their assault.
From article:
Elisha felt incredibly fortunate initially to have had quite the opposite experience in her interactions with the Vancouver Police Department. She felt that each step of the way, from reporting and giving her written statement, through to being interviewed in person for her official statement, she was treated with nothing but professionalism, respect, compassion and sensitivity by the investigators of the VPD Sex Crimes Unit.
In April 2018, after a review of the report, the VPD Sex Crimes Unit began a criminal investigation.
In November 2018, police completed their investigation and submitted an evidence package to the Crown counsel with a Recommendation for the Charge of Sexual Assault. The police will only recommend charges when it is determined through investigation that a violation of the law took place, and that there is enough evidence to support a charge recommendation.
*BC is one of 3 provinces in Canada in which the police can only recommend charges to the Crown, and the Crown makes the final decision as to whether charges will be laid. In other provinces, the police have the authority to approve charges.
March 2019 – Crown counsel requested a meeting with Elisha and the Constable from the VPD Sex Crimes unit. Crown stated that he believed Elisha, and that he would like to move forward with the case and was close to making his decision as to whether to lay charges. He requested a follow-up investigation to attempt to obtain more evidence, but stated that with historic (reported after a longer period of time) incidents, it is much more difficult to find evidence.
From March-April 2019, the VPD Sex Crimes Unit proceeded with a follow-up investigation.
In May 2019 Crown counsel made the decision not to move forward with charges, based on the standard that they require a 95% probability of conviction before they will even charge.
* Less than half (43%) of sexual assault incidents that are reported to police result in charges being laid
From article:
From the Maclean’s Magazine article, “Justice undone,” Ken MacQueen, January 14, 2012:
• When it comes to closing cases and getting serious offenders into court, the statistics for police in British Columbia are the worst in the country. While there are many explanations for this, one significant cause, some police privately complain, is that they are handcuffed by a provincial law requiring Crown attorneys to lay criminal charges. (Police lay charges in most provinces, though Quebec and New Brunswick also require Crown charge approval.) As well, B.C. law sets a higher standard of evidence for laying charges than the Criminal Code requires. Police elsewhere lay charges if there’s a “reasonable” likelihood of conviction. B.C. requires a “substantial likelihood of conviction,” and a determination that prosecution is in the “public interest.”
• Commit a crime in Victoria or Vancouver, in other words, and there are lower odds of ending up in court than in Ottawa, Toronto, Regina or Calgary. “Frankly, I view it as a corruption of the system,” Earl Moulton, a retired assistant commissioner of the RCMP, told Maclean’s. “There is no [federal] legal authority for the B.C. system,” says Moulton, a lawyer. “It’s just a usurpation of power.”
• Clayton Pecknold, deputy chief of the Central Saanich Police Service and head of the B.C. Association of Police Chiefs, says past attempts to change the system went nowhere. He says the association continues to raise concerns about long delays before charge decisions are made, about decisions not to charge that may be “based on the capacity of the courts as opposed to the public interest,” and especially about the lack of transparency when the merits of a charge are weighed in private by Crown lawyers.
• “What isn’t measured are the crimes that go unpunished when the Crown won’t lay charges unless the case is a slam dunk,” says Moulton, a former chief superintendent in B.C.
In June 2019 Elisha began Civil Proceedings.
In December 2020, a trial date was set for June 2022.
In June 2022, the trial was adjourned until November 2023.
As the defendant is representing himself, he will be cross examining Elisha and all of the witnesses who will be testifying as well.
The defendant has countersued Elisha with Defamation. Both suits were to be tried at the same time during the trial in November, which was canceled.
You might be asking, why would Elisha choose to file a lawsuit in Civil Court? She has taken this path because she has learned, along with 99% of others who have been sexually assaulted, that the criminal court system will fail them.
From article:
This is what Elisha is seeking through this lawsuit:
• To have her voice heard.
• To hold the perpetrator accountable for the lifelong damage, injury and pain his actions inflicted
• Legal validation and recognition of the assault
• It is the only avenue to have her day in court and tell the truth about what happened to her
• To have a formal accounting of and a forum to bring to light the severe, life-altering, long-term emotional, psychological, physical, and financial repercussions that the trauma of this sexual assault resulted in and that she will continue to have to seek treatment for and struggle with for the rest of her life.
• While she will never be made whole again, at least the civil court process has that as the main goal – to be made as whole as possible again after suffering injury.
From article:
Elisha has searched exhaustively to find and access any resources available to sexual assault survivors to help them navigate and go through the civil process; the truth is, they do not exist.
From article:
A GoFundMe was organized for Elisha 2 years ago; however, at that time she was not ready to publicly use her name, and it was only shared on a small scale among family and friends. That GoFundMe raised $6,540, which Elisha was so grateful to be able to put towards her legal fees.
To date, Elisha has spent over $100 000, preparing for the first trial which was adjourned, and the second trial that was canceled the first day of trial due to a lack of judges.
From article:
This does not begin to include loss of past and future wages and costs of treatment over the past several years and into the future.
From article:
Here is why Elisha keeps going, in her own words:
At first, I thought it was my fault. I kept it hidden out of shame. Then when I realized it was not my fault, I kept it hidden out of fear I would not be believed. I tried to just push it away and live as if it never happened. I kept it hidden out of fear it would consume my life. But then it began to consume me from within, until it made its own way out. And now that it is out, it has continued to devour my life. I have been fighting in one way or another for so many years, for some form of accountability and justice. I am almost at the end and cannot stop now.
From article:
In some ways, it would have been easier to walk away and not face years of my personal, professional, emotional and financial health crumbling around me. It can feel like too much of a burden, to have to prove that one of the worst moments of my life happened. But if I don’t keep moving forward, if we don’t keep moving forward, nothing will ever change for me, or for the many others who keep silent for fear of this same path I have taken. Silence would have been so much less destructive to my life on the surface, but it would have destroyed me from the inside. Eventually I realized silence was not a choice for me.
I can’t keep doing this alone. I am just me, clawing my way through a system that by design was created to chew me up; I need help to continue. I was encouraged by many members of my community to report my assault and to move forward with the process of going through the steps that we are "supposed to" go through when we have been through sexual assault. I was reassured that people were behind me and that I would not be alone. I understand people might not know how they can help or show support. This is how. This is the time to step forward and show that you are with me. Help me finish this battle that I have been fighting alone for almost a decade.
From article:
Elisha is a member of our stand-up comedy community. The work she is doing right now to hold her attacker accountable, and the work we are doing to support her in this court process, will move us all forward in making our community safer. As long as survivors of sexual assault continue to face the insurmountable barriers of our justice system and societal stigma when they do actually come forward, things will not change in our society as a whole.
*Sexual assault is the only violent crime that has been steadily INCREASING in Canada. It is exceedingly difficult, more so than any other crime, to prove sexual assault occurred. It is exceedingly rare for perpetrators of sexual assault to face consequences or be held accountable. The criminal justice system is broken.
From article:
Right now, Elisha needs your help to take this final step towards justice. While she no longer needs to pay lawyer fees, and has exceptional legal representation, she will still need to pay for additional court costs, such as expert reports and expert witnesses, etc, and she is still over $100 000 in debt for her legal costs so far.
Please donate and share this fundraiser.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER RESEARCH:
Principles outlined in The Report on Civil Remedies, prepared by the British Columbia Law Institute:
The principles underlying the report are as follows.
1. Sexual assault is a serious matter, resulting in inherent harm to survivors. This harm has not yet been fully recognized by the civil justice system.
2. The civil justice system, while not perfect, is an important process for recognizing the serious nature of sexual assault, awarding compensation to survivors, changing the behaviour of and deterring defendants, and establishing benchmarks for use in other proceedings.
3. It is a reasonable expectation for survivors of sexual assault to look to the civil courts as a means of redress.
4. While recognizing that no amount of money can provide complete restitution, the general purpose of the civil damages system is to attempt as much as possible to place the plaintiff in the state she or he was in prior to the wrongful conduct. The challenge in sexual assault cases is to recognize and quantify the survivor’s inherent harm and consequent injuries into a damage award which reflects that restorative principle.
-from Report on Civil Remedies for Sexual Assault – British Columbia Law Institute
*Statistics Canada
Sexual Assault in on the Rise in Canada
How Sexual Assault Survivors Fight the Courts to Get Justice
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/03/09/how-sexual-assault-survivors-fight-the-courts-to-get-justice/
Can the Civil Courts Provide Justice
Civil Cases for Sexual Harassment a New Avenue for Women Seeking Justice
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-january-08-2017-1.4475517/civil-cases-for-sexual-harassment-a-new-avenue-for-women-seeking-justice-1.4475519
The Reasons Some Victims of Sexual Assault Choose to Sue in Civil Court
https://www.citynews1130.com/2017/11/02/the-reasons-some-victims-of-sexual-assault-choose-to-sue-in-civil-court/
Justice undone: When it comes to closing cases, B.C. police trail the nation
Organizer and beneficiary
Chantal Michaud
Organizer
Vancouver, BC
Elisha Bonnis
Beneficiary