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| Jian Ghomeshi |
The Canadian Press reports lawyers and technology experts say the Internet has allowed for extensive records to be kept of one’s movements and comments unlike anything in the past, but most people still don’t consider the potential permanence of their words when firing off a message.
The amount of electronic data, records and documents introduced in trials can be “overwhelming,” said David Fraser, an Internet and privacy lawyer with McInnes Cooper.
“There’s also a tendency for people to put in email messages things that would be relatively casual that they earlier would have picked up the phone to communicate,” he said.
“Picking up the phone wouldn’t have created a record, but as soon as (the recipient has) an email message and they’re not inclined to delete it, all of a sudden you have a record.”
Defence lawyer Marie Henein has grilled two female complainants on their correspondence with Ghomeshi after the alleged assaults. A third has yet to testify.
On Friday, Henein produced a racy email sent by Lucy DeCoutere mere hours after she alleges Ghomeshi choked and slapped her in 2003, as well as a handwritten letter sent a few days later in which DeCoutere wrote “I love your hands.”
The “Trailer Park Boys” actress testified she didn’t remember sending the email. She said firmly that the note — as well as other warm and even romantic dispatches she sent to Ghomeshi — didn’t mean the alleged assault didn’t take place.
Ghomeshi has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. In a 2014 Facebook post he acknowledged engaging in rough sex but said it was consensual.
While 13 years is a bit further back than most people’s saved correspondence stretches, Fraser said it’s increasingly common to hang on to emails forever, given that web-based clients like Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail have practically unlimited storage space.
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