and cried as I read it.
Did I cry because I was a woman and therefore had
more empathy for this victim?
Obviously not ... as other woman seemed to have no
such feelings. I guess i just have to accept I am
possible a humantarian unlike many living in this world.
Rape defended
By JOE WARMINGTON
HAGERSVILLE --
"She's not even from here," said one woman.
"I am sure he did it ... but."
But what? "It was peer pressure," she explained.
"It was out of character for him."
The woman called the suspect a "nice" boy.
"He's a good kid," added a teenage girl.
"He just did a stupid thing that night," a man said.
Are they nuts? It was gang rape, wasn't it?
An 18-year-old girl had passed out at a party and
was brutally sexually assaulted, wasn't she?
Three males, one adult and two young offenders,
were all convicted, weren't they?
And yesterday a prison sentence handed down to the
adult. Still, there are some defending him.
"It was alcohol that caused it," said a woman, adding
since it happened in a bedroom, "who knows what went
on."
We know what went on. A girl was gang raped.
But the woman said there are people upset
"because of what happened to Zach."
Because of what happened to Zach?
Zach Wobbes was sentenced yesterday in a Cayuga court
to 26 months in a federal prison -- of which he will serve
18 -- for the vicious crime that took place during his 19th
birthday party.
The Crown wanted three to five and the case may go to
an appeal.
That's what happened to poor Zach.
Now, let's talk about what happened to the girl. It's graphic,
but evidence showed a beer bottle was used in the assault
after she had passed out.
"It was disgusting," said a court official.
"This is a fine young woman who is still having a tough time
of it."
So traumatized she stayed with her mother in her home in
Florida -- waiting for her father, who lives in Hagersville, to
tell her the news.
Anybody who is rationalizing this crime needs to look in the
mirror. Zach's hardships are secondary.
This girl is a victim. Plain and simple. A victim.
And yet there are some here who don't want to hear it,
as Hamilton Spectator city columnist Susan Clairmont
found out this week.
She's written of the horrors of this incident, only to be
peppered with angry e-mails and phone calls.
"I must have received 300," she said.
"I have been called every name in the book."
She must not be from Hagersville, either. But they are
not going to intimidate her. They tried.
"Thanks a lot, you stupid bitch, for something that everyone
had pretty much put behind them," was one of the e-mails
she received from a girl from the Hagersville Secondary
School.
Another described her as an "immature woman who thinks
she is doing good by letting people know this.
Well, you're not. Truth is, deep down in my heart, I know
Zach Wobbes didn't do any of that."
Clairmont, a terrific columnist who has been around the block,
was "shocked" by the reaction.
"It is just like the Jodie Foster movie," she told me.
It definitely does have a ring to it of The Accused, where
everybody in a U.S. town ostracizes a rape victim for testifying
against a popular local. Is that what's going on here?
Hogwash, said the longtime editor and publisher of the
Haldimand Press, Bob Hall. "It's bullsh--," he said.
"And you can spell that out if you want."
He defends his town. And, he said, there's nothing wrong
with the students at the high school, either.
"I can tell you it's no different than any other high school."
He's been at the paper 44 years and calls this a
media-driven crisis.
"You, the major media, attack this area when there's a
negative and never when there's a positive."
He's probably right. Remember the tire fire? I haven't seen
a lot of coverage about Hagersville since.
"Did you know Becky Kellar was born and raised here?"
said Hall's co-worker Bonnie McKinnon of the hockey
player on Canada's Olympic gold medal women's hockey
team.
Bob mentions the restoration of the Cottonwood Mansion
here as a wonderful example of "what the community
achieved."
He's correct on all counts. We do that in the media.
But this was the gang rape of a girl in that town.
But Hall does have a point about the high school, too.
Lots of kids are upset.
Dakota Hill called the culprits "a--holes" who "should
have got more" prison time.
Others in town are also outraged.
"You have got to be kidding," said Andrea Redwood of
the sentences. "I would have given them more."
You can't stereotype a community and Hagersville is a fine
town. But Susan Clairmont was right, too.
This is horrible what happened down here -- the crime
and the response.
Susan is not mistaken either, since I heard the same
sentiment with my own ears from many people trying to
appallingly minimize this heinous crime.
It's difficult to comprehend. "I think (the sentence) was too
harsh," Len Blyleven told his pal Frank Dillon at the
Tim Hortons.
Too harsh? This was a gang rape.
The girl was unconscious and a beer bottle
was used.
Wonder what the appropriate time would
have been had the girl been local?
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