Irrelevant and Invasive Police Inquisitions Into the Sexual History of Sexual Assault Complainants

Professor Craig will discuss her research through a sample of 220 police interviews across Nova Scotia involving sexual assault complainants 14 years of age or older. She will focus on whether questions were asked about prior sexual history or other sexual activities. She describes the prevalence of these questions, the scope of the questions and the twin problems of both legal irrelevance and legal jeopardy raised by these questions.

Elaine Craig is an associate professor at Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. She is the author of two books Troubling Sex: Towards a Legal Theory of Sexual Integrity and Putting Trial on Trial: Sexual Assault and the Failure of the Legal Profession and will publish her third in 2024: Porn on the Platform: Sexual Integrity in a Data Driver Era. She teaches and researches in the areas of constitutional law, evidence law, law and sexuality, feminist legal theory and queer legal theory. She has published articles on sexual assault law, the criminal regulation of sex work, censorship, sexual minority equality, feminist legal theory and queer legal theory.