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Woman makes shock claim in court case over alleged
explicit texts from cricketer
The former Australia cricket captain is accused of sending sexual texts and photos
to a woman reportedly seeking $72,000 in compensation
Graphic sexual texts allegedly sent by ex-Australia cricket captain Tim Paine to a former Cricket Tasmania (CT) employee were not consensual, accuser Renee Ferguson has claimed in reported legal documents as part of a federal court case.
Ashes winner Paine said that the texts, which allegedly told Ferguson to "finish me off" and included photos of his genitalia, were consensual when he resigned as Australia captain in November 2021 over the scandal, according to Yahoo.
Ferguson, who is said to be seeking $72,000 in compensation, has now reportedly said that the texts were not consensual and claimed that two other managers at CT, as well as Paine's brother-in-law, Shannon Tubb, subjected her to sexualized and inappropriate comments when she worked at the organization in 2017 where she says their behavior was accepted and part of the workplace culture.
Paine, who announced on November 26 that he would be taking a break from cricket "for the foreseeable future" after stepping down from the Australia test team captaincy a week before, allegedly texted Ferguson in the hours leading up to an Ashes match against England in Brisbane.
After Paine sent her a message that stated he couldn't rest his hands "when I'm this hard", Ferguson claims to have tried to steer the topic of conversation away from being sexual.
In other correspondence, the 37-year-old allegedly ordered her to "finish me off with those lips then Renee", along with a winking emoji. The lengthy 18-page court document is said to show how Ferguson said she was unsure how to respond to the unsolicited texts and vowed that a woman would "never kiss and tell".
"Regardless neither of us are in a position of power... we are both f***ed if this got out," Ferguson highlighted, which then allegedly prompted Paine to offend Ferguson by sending her a photo of his penis and the caption: "True, so f***ed".
Ferguson claims that three managers subjected her to sexualized and inappropriate comments during her time at CT, with one – Stephen McMullen – failing in a bid to keep his identity private on Wednesday and denying allegations of asking intrusive questions and making graphic comments towards Ferguson.
Now coaching at a prestigious school in South Australia, Paine's brother-in-law, Shannon Tubbm was also involved, according to the documents. He is said to have texted her "I want to put my **** ( deleted)" while working as CT's high-performance manager.
In 2015, another senior member of staff allegedly made lewd comments while walking past Ferguson's desk and boasted to colleagues: "Hey everyone, [the woman] will be naked in my apartment at 11 today. Get your binoculars out and I will open the curtains."
When Ferguson raised her concerns to managers she was allegedly informed: "I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but you need to move forward".
Ferguson claims that her mental health suffered due to the "relentless and systemic" behavior at CT, which led to her struggling to take care of her children and suicidal thoughts, while also leaving her feeling deflated.
A federal court judge ordered Ferguson and CT to go into mediation next month, with the ex-receptionist said to be demanding an apology plus $100,000 AUD ($72,000) in compensation for the hurt and humiliation she suffered in their employ.
When Paine stepped down from the captaincy, CT condemned Cricket Australia for its "appalling" treatment of the wicketkeeper.
CT's chairman, Andrew Gaggin, stated that Paine "should not have been put in a position where he felt the need to resign over an incident that was determined by an independent inquiry to not be a breach of the code of conduct".
What adolescent wrote the code of conduct?
Contrary to what Ferguson has reportedly put forward, Gaggin added that the messages were "a consensual and private exchange that occurred between two mature adults and was not repeated".
I would question the adjective, 'mature' here.
Cricket Australia did admit that it had mishandled the debacle in 2018, but its chair, Richard Freudenstein, who was not in his post at the time, said the organization "would not make the same decisions today" under the current administration in late 2021.
After Pat Cummins replaced Paine as Australia captain, the team beat England 4-0 in a five-test Ashes series on home soil concluded in the Tasmanian capital of Hobart on January 18.
Ghislaine Maxwell’s family ‘fear for her safety’
Concerns arise after another ‘associate’ of Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell
© Getty Images / Joe Schildhorn; Patrick McMullan
The brother of convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell said he and the rest of the family fear for her safety after suspected Jeffrey Epstein associate Jean-Luc Brunel was found dead in his jail cell in France on Saturday.
Following news of Brunel’s death, Ian Maxwell told the New York Post that it was “really shocking” there had been “another death by hanging in a high-security prison,” and said his reaction was “one of total shock and bewilderment.”
Epstein himself was found dead in his cell from an apparent suicide in August 2019 while awaiting trial for child sex trafficking crimes. Brunel – the head of a modelling agency who has been in pre-trial detention since late 2020 – was accused of helping to provide victims for Epstein’s sex trafficking ring, which Maxwell also allegedly had a major part in. Brunel was found dead in his cell in the Paris La Santé prison in the early hours of Saturday morning, also reportedly committing suicide by hanging himself.
Ghislaine Maxwell’s brother told the Post that their family “fears for her safety” at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center following the deaths of Epstein and Brunel. Ian Maxwell also insisted that his sister is not suicidal.
“Despite the psychiatrist advising to the contrary, she was deemed a suicide risk and they are continuing to wake her up every 15 minutes in the night,” he protested, calling it “a complete violation of prisoner rights and human rights.”
Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of five charges in December, including sex trafficking a minor, and faces up to 65 years in prison. Maxwell still faces additional charges of perjury.
Epstein's impossible hanging just happened to coincide with the malfunctioning of all the cameras near his cell. Brunel's apparent suicide also occurred when the cameras were down.
Either the French learned absolutely nothing from Epstein's suicide, or they learned how to do it properly. Consequently, they are either spectacularly stupid, or guilty. Can they pull off 3 in a row?
Sarah Polley breaks silence about traumatic encounter with Jian Ghomeshi
Canadian filmmaker is releasing new book of essays called Run Towards the Danger
Yvette Brend ·
CBC Radio ·
Posted: Feb 28, 2022 7:00 AM ET
On screen, actor Sarah Polley was known for her poise under pressure, but off screen she says she wrestled with a lot of ghosts from past trauma. She wrote about many of them in a new book of essays. (Christopher Langenzarde/CBC)
On screen, actor Sarah Polley was often cast as the fierce protagonist veering straight into peril, whether it was an oncoming bus or some sort of explosion.
Off screen, however, she says she feared confronting certain things, including a traumatic experience with former CBC radio personality Jian Ghomeshi.
Ghomeshi was a very popular radio host on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He was charged for hitting, choking, and being very rough during sexual encounters.
He was acquitted because the three victims who came forward, DeCoutere included, were deemed to be not credible witnesses. All withheld pertinent information from the police, and, at least two of them continued the relationship after the rough sex.
The 43-year-old filmmaker and Oscar-nominated screenwriter says a brain injury in 2015 became a catalyst for her to address some past trauma. The result is a new collection of essays, Run Towards the Danger (out March 1), which Polley says took years to write.
"These are the stories that haunted me," said Polley in an interview with Matt Galloway, host of CBC Radio's The Current.
She is sharing them because "I think I'm strong enough to handle this now."
Polley's new book of essays is called Run Towards the Danger.
(George Pimentel/WIREIMAGE/Getty Images, Penguin Random House)
Polley had her first film role at age four and was a Canadian television staple by the 1990s. Her roles ranged from the strong-willed Sara Stanley in Road to Avonlea to a teen paralyzed by a bus accident and sexually abused in The Sweet Hereafter. Polley eventually moved on to direct films, including the Oscar-nominated Away From Her (2006) and Stories We Tell (2012).
While Polley's book is frank about her career in film and television, the most shocking essay involves an incident of alleged sexual violence with Ghomeshi, which Polley says she has carried since she was 16. In the essay, entitled "The Woman Who Stayed Silent," Polley relates how Ghomeshi, who was 28 at the time, hurt her during a sexual encounter at his apartment, and ignored her pleas to stop.
Ghomeshi is a former member of the folk-pop band Moxy Früvous and hosted the CBC Radio show Q.
In 2014, he was accused of sexual assault and harassment by several women and charged. Ghomeshi argued that the incidents were consensual. He was acquitted on four counts of sexual assault and one count of choking involving three complainants in 2016.
CBC reached out to Ghomeshi multiple times through Roqe Media, as well as his former lawyer Marie Heinen, for a response to Polley's allegations.
'I did struggle with this'
At the time of Ghomeshi's trial, Polley considered coming forward to tell her story.
"I did struggle with this a lot," she said.
But she said lawyers she spoke with told her she'd make a "terrible" witness because of inconsistencies in her story and how she interacted with Ghomeshi as a guest on his radio show in the years after the alleged incident.
Polley said she was told "your case won't lend credibility to the women who have come forward because you will go through exactly the same evisceration that they are going to get set up for."
"I had a lot of information about what I was headed … towards," she said.
"I had two tiny children, and I knew I couldn't handle it."
After Ghomeshi's acquittal in 2016, Ontario Judge William Horkins issued a searing rebuke of the complainants, saying their "deceptive and manipulative" evidence raised a reasonable doubt of Ghomeshi's guilt.
"Many people who have come forward with stories like this get subjected to a kind of analysis," said Polley.
"If you don't remember every detail perfectly, if you can't create a snapshot that is unassailable," then you are not considered credible, she said.
How memory protects victims
Polley says she values the concept of innocent until proven guilty, but believes the adversarial legal system can end up re-traumatizing victims.
"Do women need to be destroyed in looking for those shadows and looking for those inconsistencies?" She described how her own memory blotted out things that were too damaging, and that makes it very difficult to retain exact details about traumatic events.
"The brain works hard to protect you from what's happened and to make what happens after survivable. And that means obliterating a lot… I think it's really, really messy."
Polley is seen being interviewed by CBC, during a visit to Prince Edward Island, in August 1991.
(Midday/CBC Archives)
Polley has had traumatic memories return from her time grieving her mother — who died of cancer when Polley was 11 — and from on-set terrors while filming explosive scenes in Terry Gilliam's 1988 film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
Stories kept in a 'dark cave'
The book marks a new chapter for Polley, who was injured six years ago when a large fire extinguisher, which was hung on the wall, fell on her head as she bent over a lost-and-found box at a Toronto community centre.
Polley says it led to three and a half years of difficulty. The first year after the accident was particularly extreme, she says, as her brain was unable to cope with noise and light.
While Polley was at a clinic in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, a doctor named Michael Collins advised her to keep doing what was difficult.
"Whatever was triggering my symptoms, I had to do more of. Whatever I was avoiding, my brain was getting weaker at dealing with," she said.
Polley is one of the directors on Hey Lady!, a 2020 Canadian comedy web series co-directed by Adriana Maggs and Will Bowes that airs on CBC Gem. (CBC)
So Polley forced herself to go to the grocery shop, even when the store lights made her feel like her head would explode. She says her brain feels healthy now.
The book is the result of her confronting other difficult parts of her life — memories she says she kept in a "dark cave."
"I've been terrified to articulate these stories — even to myself."
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