We’re not sure what happened next.
During one breakdown, says her father Glen Canning, staff stripped the alleged rape victim naked and kept her in a solitary room overnight. But “we’ve reviewed the situation thoroughly and the accusation made was just not true,” IWK CEO Anne McGuire tells The Coast.
Canning couldn’t be reached to comment on his earlier statement. But since his daughter’s death, he has thrown himself behind police protests and mental-health initiatives. “It’s almost at the point now where we don’t know what to do anymore,” Canning said earlier, at a June 1 rally decrying police inaction in the wake of his daughter's death."
Since Parsons’ suicide in April, the Nova Scotia government has pushed for new laws that ban distributing sexual images without consent. The Nova Scotia justice department has also announced a new anti-cyberbullying investigative unit. The unit will be able to seize online devices associated with actions “that are hurtful but that aren’t necessarily meeting the Criminal Code requirements,” deputy Halifax police chief Bill Moore told Global News.
But laws against child pornography and criminal harassment are already on the books. Canning says institutions were in place to support his daughter---and they failed her.
Canning alleges new evidence has been made available but has not been seized. He also recalls a Facebook group, Speak The Truth, in support of the boys allegedly involved. “[Police] had an opportunity here to see they were saying, yeah…she was drunk and yes, they had sex with her,” he says. The creator removed the group after discussions with police.
Police representatives couldn’t comment, because the investigation is ongoing.
The Nova Scotia government has promised an independent police review with regards to Rehtaeh’s case. They’ll wait until the reopened investigation is complete. A panel has also been struck to review the Halifax Regional School Board’s role in events before her death.
