Judge Resigns After Telling Woman In Rape Trial ‘Pain And Sex Sometimes Go Together’

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By Rachel Stoltzfoos

A Canadian judge has resigned from his post after he was found guilty of victim-blaming throughout a rape trial in which he asked the alleged victim why she didn’t just “keep her knees together” to avoid the assault.

Justice Robin Camp’s resignation is the result of a 15-month investigation into his handling of the trial of a man accused of raping a young woman as she sat in a bathroom sink in 2011, reports The Independent. The judicial council concluded Camp humiliated, disrespected and condescended to the woman, based in part on a review of more than 1,000 pages of transcripts from the trial.

“Why didn’t you just sink your bottom down into the basin so he couldn’t penetrate you?” Camp asked the alleged victim at one point in the trial. When she replied she was drunk, he asked: “And when your ankles were held together by your jeans, your skinny jeans, why couldn’t you just keep your knees together?”

Camp also incorrectly referred to the woman as the “accused” multiple times throughout the trial, and told her “pain and sex sometimes go together.” The man accused of rape was ultimately found not guilty.

“Judges are expected to demonstrate knowledge of social issues, and awareness of changes in social values, humility, tolerance and respect for others,” the judicial council said in its report, concluding Camp is unfit to continue being a judge. “Those are the very qualities that sustain public confidence in the judiciary.”

Four members of the council disagreed with the conclusion, saying Camp should only be temporarily suspended.

Camp’s lawyer had said Camp is reformed and should not have to resign: “Justice Camp’s misconduct was the product of ignorance, not animus. He has worked hard to correct his knowledge deficit.”

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