N.S. nurse tells police review board that officer seemed to blame alleged rape victim
CTV
A nurse who examined a Nova Scotia woman to collect evidence of rape is testifying at a hearing into alleged police mishandling of the case.
A nurse who collected evidence of rape from a Nova Scotia woman told a police review board hearing on Tuesday that a constable asked the woman inappropriate questions that seemed to place blame on the victim.
Carrie Low filed a complaint against the Halifax Regional Police and Const. Bojan Novakovic a year after she reported being sexually assaulted by at least two men in a trailer in East Preston, N.S., on May 18, 2018.
Jane Collins, a sexual assault nurse examiner, told a Nova Scotia Police Review Board hearing that she felt Novakovic's detailed questioning of Low at the hospital the next day should have been left to officers specialized in rape cases. Collins said the constable asked Low why she didn't try to get out of a car in which she was being confined and call for help from police, who were in a nearby parking lot.
"It was putting onus on Ms. Low as to why she couldn't escape," Collins testified. "I thought (Novakovic) was revictimizing her. It wasn't anything I had experienced before with a police officer."
Low has told the hearing that after she left a bar in a Halifax suburb, she remembered lying down in a car and repeatedly asking the men inside to let her out. The hearing has also heard evidence that while Low was in the car, police were responding to a fight nearby.
"I felt there was blaming involved and I didn't think it was appropriate, that's what really bothered me," Collins said about Novakovic's questions.
Novakovic has been docked eight hours pay for his handling of Low's case. In response, Low appealed that penalty to the review board, and she has also requested that the board make recommendations to improve the Halifax police force's response to sexual assault survivors. Low's lawyer has said the legal team was considering what appropriate disciplinary sanctions should be sought against Novakovic.
