Hi.
I am new here so I hope I am posting properly in the right sections.
I wanted to relate my recent experience with the court system. I have PTSD and am on medications. I was given a subpoena to appear as a witness for the Crown. One year ago, I had someone in the passenger seat of my car. He had over-dosed on a medication(and also had oxys in his system) and was high as a result. He pulled my car off the highway by yanking the steering wheel out of my control. My car was totalled and I ended up with some injuries - of course he had no injuries.
I was told that if I did not appear at the court on the day of trial that they would issue a bench warrant for me and I could be arrested.
They did allow me to testify via CCTV on the first day of the trial. However, I was NOT prepared for the way I was verbally attacked by the defence lawyer. I had no idea that they could do that. One of the things that really upset me the most and has caused a setback in my PTSD recovery, is that she was allowed to continue with a line of questioning that "alluded" to the fact that I could not have known what was going on that day in the car because I had been prescribed medications by my psychiatrist. She would not let me reply thoroughly enough to say 1. I had not taken my medications that day, other than Prozac and 2. the medications, in the dosages that they were prescribed, were legally prescribed by a doctor. I was a fully licensed operator of a motor vehicle and fully able to drive without a problem but when someone grabs the wheel of your car when you are driving 100km/hr on a 4 lane highway, there is going to be some havoc caused in the car as it slides across two other lanes of traffic and down an embankment. I was not strong enough to pull the wheel back into my control against his pulling the car off the road.
Definitely there is a bias in this country against medication and mental illness, that is nothing new. But I expect that law enforcement and the courts should at least make a decent attempt to understand what they are talking about. I was made to feel even worse about myself than I already do and publicly embarrassed because I have PTSD. The Crown misled me into thinking that if defence deviated into a line of questioning that was inappropriate, that he would interject. He didn't.
How is it that in this country, the history of the accused cannot be discussed or introduced but for myself, as a prosecution witness, they were allowed to bring up and discuss my past medication history and things about my life (such as my baby) that had nothing to do with the accident that day.
I am all for "innocent until proven guity" but this went way past it.
In retrospect, I should have let them issue a bench warrant and arrested me for not appearing.
At this point, I feel like the guilty person because I have PTSD.
I am new here so I hope I am posting properly in the right sections.
I wanted to relate my recent experience with the court system. I have PTSD and am on medications. I was given a subpoena to appear as a witness for the Crown. One year ago, I had someone in the passenger seat of my car. He had over-dosed on a medication(and also had oxys in his system) and was high as a result. He pulled my car off the highway by yanking the steering wheel out of my control. My car was totalled and I ended up with some injuries - of course he had no injuries.
I was told that if I did not appear at the court on the day of trial that they would issue a bench warrant for me and I could be arrested.
They did allow me to testify via CCTV on the first day of the trial. However, I was NOT prepared for the way I was verbally attacked by the defence lawyer. I had no idea that they could do that. One of the things that really upset me the most and has caused a setback in my PTSD recovery, is that she was allowed to continue with a line of questioning that "alluded" to the fact that I could not have known what was going on that day in the car because I had been prescribed medications by my psychiatrist. She would not let me reply thoroughly enough to say 1. I had not taken my medications that day, other than Prozac and 2. the medications, in the dosages that they were prescribed, were legally prescribed by a doctor. I was a fully licensed operator of a motor vehicle and fully able to drive without a problem but when someone grabs the wheel of your car when you are driving 100km/hr on a 4 lane highway, there is going to be some havoc caused in the car as it slides across two other lanes of traffic and down an embankment. I was not strong enough to pull the wheel back into my control against his pulling the car off the road.
Definitely there is a bias in this country against medication and mental illness, that is nothing new. But I expect that law enforcement and the courts should at least make a decent attempt to understand what they are talking about. I was made to feel even worse about myself than I already do and publicly embarrassed because I have PTSD. The Crown misled me into thinking that if defence deviated into a line of questioning that was inappropriate, that he would interject. He didn't.
How is it that in this country, the history of the accused cannot be discussed or introduced but for myself, as a prosecution witness, they were allowed to bring up and discuss my past medication history and things about my life (such as my baby) that had nothing to do with the accident that day.
I am all for "innocent until proven guity" but this went way past it.
In retrospect, I should have let them issue a bench warrant and arrested me for not appearing.
At this point, I feel like the guilty person because I have PTSD.
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