Partners Jane Currie, left, and Anji Dimitriou, are seen outside an Oshawa court Thursday. The women were allegedly struck by Oshawa resident Mark Scott during an altercation outside their children's school in 2008. Scott's trial on two counts of assault causing bodily harm is wrapping up.
CAROLA VYHNAK/TORONTO STAR
An Oshawa man accused of hitting two women in front of their children’s school acted in self-defence after they attacked him during a confrontation with racist overtones, his lawyer has told court.
Mark Scott, who is black, “was more than entitled to defend himself” after both women struck him in the altercation on Nov. 3, 2008, defence lawyer Mark Jacula said during closing arguments in Oshawa court on Thursday.
Scott, 45, threw one punch each at partners Jane Currie and Anji Dimitriou, Jacula told Justice Katrina Mulligan. He is charged with two counts of assault causing bodily harm.
One witness, whom Jacula argued was the most credible, described the incident in front of Gordon B. Attersley Public School as a “full-out brawl,” he pointed out. The witness also testified that Currie, 38, cursed Scott and used the n-word.
On her Facebook page later, she “promoted hatred in one of the most disgusting manners,” referring to Scott as a “lesser species of man … who slid further down the evolutionary scale” with his actions, Jacula said.
Dimitriou, 32, was the “initiator and aggressor” in the incident, which left both women with facial cuts and bruises, he said, noting that Scott also provided evidence that he was struck and his glasses broken.
“Numerous witnesses” supported his version of events while the Crown’s witnesses were largely not credible, Jacula contended.
During testimony, the women denied using racial slurs and said Scott threw the first punches in the altercation that followed a dispute involving their children a few days earlier.
But Jacula argued their side of the story was fabricated, inconsistent and based on “selective memory.” Currie’s bias, he said, led her to “say whatever it takes to get Mr. Scott convicted.”
A witness whom Jacula accused of colluding with the women “equates to a fisherman telling a tale.” She testified that Scott spat on Dimitriou’s face, leaving “so much saliva she couldn’t see,” he said.
During his testimony, Scott said he was chewing peanuts and turned to spit them on the ground when Dimitriou cursed him, used the n-word and punched him in the face.
Other witnesses told court they didn’t see either woman hit Scott first but that he referred to them as “f---ing men.” Scott denied that.
Closing submissions will continue in August.
Commentary by the Ottawa Mens Centre
The allegations of Currie and Dimitriou were seriously contradicted by
reliable witnesses and that evidence was apparently available to police who
still, decided to charge Mark Scott.
These charges are a symptom of the times, where police have a knee jerk reaction
to laying charges for women against men. That slants all the statistics that
falsely justify the billion dollar feminist domestic violence war on men that
has little genuine purpose other than to deprive men of their legal rights.
While the government encourages such abuses of process, we will endless streams
of Jane Currie's and Anji Dimitriou fabricating charges to justify their own
personality problems and or mental health problems that they use to justify
their hatred of men.
Its that sort of mentality that corrupts our family courts that is facilitated
by the underbelly of the judiciary such as Power and Sheffield who spend their
entire lives leaving a trail of destroyed men and children who never see their
father again.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com