Canadian hostage, wife & children freed from Afghanistan, husband arrested for abuse, Oct 2017 #2

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/joshua-boyle-sexual-assault-1.5269137 Sept 3, 2109

Crown downgrades one sexual assault charge against Joshua Boyle

The Crown today conceded there's insufficient evidence for the trial judge to convict Boyle on a charge of sexual assault with a weapon (ropes). The prosecution confirmed in court it will proceed with a simple sexual assault charge instead.

Boyle's lawyers are asking the court to toss out another charge — that he misled police into thinking his wife was missing and suicidal when she left the couple's Ottawa home on the night of December 30, 2017. Greenspon said Coleman herself had acknowledged suicidal thoughts and a history of self-harm, suggesting it was reasonable to expect Boyle would call the police out of concern for his wife's mental state.

The Crown countered by saying that a history of self-harm doesn't equate to suicide.

 

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Joshua Boyle is on the witness stand today

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/boyle-trial-stand-ottawa-1.5269897 Sept 4

Former hostage Joshua Boyle contradicts estranged wife's testimony

He testified he never misled Coleman about the plan to travel to Afghanistan, contradicting Coleman's earlier testimony. Boyle said Coleman lied to her parents because she didn't want them to know the couple was travelling to a war-torn territory.
Boyle said his wife was in control at all times and carried their money and passports "because women are less likely to be searched and mugged."

Boyle denied his estranged wife's claims that he abused her while the couple was being held captive. In fact, Boyle said, the reverse was true: it was Coleman who was emotionally and physically abusive, he testified.
On one occasion, Boyle said Coleman attempted to trade his life to their hostage-takers for a piece of candy — to "leverage" his execution in exchange for chocolate, he testified.

Boyle said he told his wife several times that he planned on seeking a divorce once they were released.

Back in Ottawa, Boyle said he would engage in consensual BDSM acts that involved Coleman being tied up with rope while they had sex.
"If there were instances where she didn't want to have sex, we didn't have sex." Boyle said. "It was strictly playful between us."
If anything, Boyle said, Coleman's appetite for sex intensified when they returned to Canada. He said he suspects she wanted to have another baby in hopes that he would change his mind about seeking a divorce.

In fact, Boyle said, it was he who had to assume most of the responsibilities of raising their children and cooking meals after their return.
Coleman's mental health worsened and she was unable to take care of the family or herself, he testified. At times, Boyle said, he had to remind Coleman to bathe, and sometimes resorted to giving her sponge baths.

"She was neglectful at the best of times," Boyle said.

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Joshua Boyle says his wife suffered violent fits; denies any kind of assault, sexual assault Sept 4

Joshua Boyle says his wife suffered violent fits; denies any kind of assault, sexual assault

Taking the witness stand at the launch of the defence case, Boyle even suggested that Caitlan Coleman may have been responsible for bringing them to the attention of Islamic extremists in October 2012.

Coleman had one of her fits in their Kabul guesthouse, he said, during which “she made comments that would be deemed blasphemous in Afghanistan.”

“The following morning,” he said, “we were kidnapped when we left the guesthouse.”

Boyle, however, told court that the central problem in his relationship with Coleman was her mental instability.

After starting that relationship in 2006, Boyle said he quickly came to understand that Coleman had “a very tempestuous personality.”

She went through “manic phases and self-loathing phases several times a day,” he said, and had a hair-trigger temper that could be set off by such things as running out of hot water.

The following year, however, he announced he was divorcing Khadr. “She was very excited at the possibility of marrying me,” he said, “and I came to agree with her that I would.”

The couple moved into a house in New Brunswick, he said, where she once came at him with a knife because he came home with the wrong brand of mayonnaise.

“It was high octane,” Boyle said of the relationship.

 

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/joshua-boyle-caitlan-coleman-hostages-afghanistan-1.5271685 Sept 5

Boyle claims estranged wife was 'naked ... acting inappropriately' the night he called police

Boyle is back on the stand for a second day of testimony. In a sudden move Wednesday, Boyle's lawyers announced he would take the stand in his own defence.

"She was not only naked but saying things that were not healthy for the children to be hearing," Boyle testified. "She was worked up and acting inappropriately."
Boyle testified Coleman became "distressed" while he was putting the children to bed the night of Dec. 30.

"She was again hyperventilating. She was speaking rapidly. Naked," Boyle testified. "I was sort of trying to get her out of the children's room and go calm down.

"She was becoming frenzied. She was grabbing at me. She wasn't hitting or anything. Very much animated."

"She was distressed about the divorce, indicating she was never going to get better ... things are just going to keep getting worse ... If I am going to leave her she's going to kill herself," he testified.

 

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Ottawa Citizen reporter Andrew Duffy tweeting from the trial
Andrew Duffy on Twitter Sept 5

-Back on the witness stand, Joshua Boyle says his wife became so agitated on the night of Dec. 30, 2017 that she took off all her clothes and grabbed at him before fleeing barefoot into a cold winter's night.

-Boyle insists that he was not trying to mislead police when he called 911 to report Coleman missing on the night of Dec. 30, 2017: “It was out of concern for her that I phoned police and asked them to look for her,” he said.

-Boyle's evidence in chief has finished. Crown attorney Jason Neubauer has made an application to make Boyle's character an issue during cross examination.

-Joshua Boyle says he sleeps on the floor. It's part of a decision-making process, he said, that doesn't consider pleasure or pain. He told court that, years ago, he taught himself to withstand pain and not to fear death.

-Joshua Boyle says that, as a young man, he wanted to be a war correspondent or a non-fiction writer based overseas. He anticipated a life full of hardship and travel, and says he warned Caitlan Coleman that her life would not be an easy one if she joined herself to him.

-Before concluding his testimony for the day, Boyle revealed that he once criticized Caitlan Coleman for ending too many sentences with prepositions. But he insists he did not tell her how to dress and did not try to dominate her emotional life.

-Judge Peter K. Doody will allow the Crown to broaden its cross-examination of Joshua Boyle to examine elements of his character.

 

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Ottawa Citizen reporter Andrew Duffy tweeting from the courthouse Sept 6, 2019
Andrew Duffy (@citizenduffy) | Twitter

Joshua Boyle takes the stand again this morning

-Back on the stand, Joshua Boyle said one of the happy things he remembers about his relationship with Caitlan Coleman was making applesauce together with apples they had picked themselves.

-Boyle testified about his decision to commit to Caitlan Coleman: "I entered a relationship knowing that it would bring chaos and pain. I identify as a masochist."

-Crown attorney Jason Neubauer says he believes there's no way Joshua Boyle would marry Caitlan Coleman given all he knew about her serious mental health and emotional issues. "I believe theres no way you would have agreed to marry her," Boyle tells him.

-Joshua Boyle says he was once asked to run for the leadership of the Pirate Party of Canada.

 

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Boyle being cross-examined by Crown Attorneys

Joshua Boyle, accused of assault, says he tried to build wife's self-esteem Sept 6

Joshua Boyle, accused of assault, says he tried to build wife's self-esteem

Former hostage Joshua Boyle, accused of assaulting wife Caitlan Coleman, denies he told her how to dress, limited her contact with other men or generally belittled her during their sometimes fractious courtship.

Boyle has testified during his trial in Ontario court that he bought Coleman clothes to help her project a more mature image, and discouraged her from associating with a couple of people he considered bad for her

 

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Citizen reporter Andrew Duffey tweeting from the courthouse this afternoon Sept 6

Andrew Duffy@citizenduffy

-Joshua Boyle insists that his wife, Caitlan Coleman, knew they were going to travel to Afghanistan, and lied about that fact later to deflect criticism from her parents.

 

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Andrew Duffy@citizenduffy

During their captivity, Joshua Boyle said, he used to joke with Caitlan Coleman about how prison sex was underrated. He said the couple continued to have sex - and children - after he announced his intention to divorce her one year into their captivity.
3:57 PM · Sep 6, 2019·Twitter Web App

 

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JB tells the Judge he was an aspiring war correspondent as the reason to go to Afghanistan (perhaps JB should prove he had not only education but training and job experience as a journalist...and editing wikipedia does not count IMO)

JB tells the Judge he was considering divorce while they were in captivity, then decided instead to seek a divorce when they were released (he knew they would be released one day? and not killed?) but even though he had decided he wanted to divorce her during captivity he continued to have children with her...EXCUSE ME WHILE I VOMIT, all the while he is trying to convince the Judge what a martyr he is..telling the Judge his, JB's happiness is irrelevant...EYE ROLL

IMO JB is manipulative, self-aggrandizing, narcissistic and abusive

Joshua Boyle testifies he doesn't blame wife for their capture in Afghanistan Sept 6

Joshua Boyle testifies he doesn't blame wife for their capture in Afghanistan

Former Afghanistan hostage Joshua Boyle says his abductors told him that Caitlan Coleman’s loud blasphemy in a Kabul guesthouse led to their kidnapping one day later.

“I was not very angry at her over it,” he testified. “I recognized that it was not intentional on her part, and she had no ill intent and certainly didn’t deserve what happened as a result. “

Boyle told court that, during their stay in a Kabul guesthouse in October 2012, Coleman had a fit during which she said allegedly blasphemous things “quite loudly and quite dramatically.”

An aspiring war correspondent, Boyle said he wanted to go to Afghanistan to better understand the country and its armed actors. He planned to take photos and to explore whether an overseas reporting career was feasible.

He thought they would be safe, he said, since Afghanistan’s crime rate was then better than those in Baltimore or Detroit. Kidnapping was a remote possibility, he believed. “I was aware that, of the 17,000 tourists who entered the country before us, only one had been abducted,” he said. “So those were the odds.”

Neubauer asked Boyle if he was happy during his marriage, but he deflected the question, saying: “My own happiness is not usually relevant. It’s not something I take much account of.”

Neubauer persisted and Boyle conceded that he was happy sometimes and not happy at other times. When asked for specifics, Boyle said, “I remember we had a great time making apple sauce bread. We picked the apples and made it from scratch.”

Boyle said his wife’s violence and mental health issues were the primary sources of turbulence in their marriage, and he told court he believed he was in “physical danger” while living with Coleman.

 

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Joshua Boyle, accused of assault, says he tried to build wife’s self-esteem Sept 6
Joshua Boyle, accused of assault, says he tried to build wife's self-esteem

He said he wasn’t overly concerned with whether she even wore the clothes he purchased
“She was free to wear it or not as she wanted,” Boyle said. “I never said to her she had to wear anything.”

Neubauer pointed to a letter Boyle had sent to Coleman during a time they spent apart, citing it as another attempt by Boyle to control her.

In the note, Boyle asked Coleman to be mindful of “the need to wear your lingerie before bed, or to wear the corset and stockings next time you write to me, or to think what should I cook that Josh likes, sometimes.”

Boyle played down the suggestion he was ordering his wife how to behave. “I’m not sure what my intention was in writing this letter.”

He also denied any suggestion Coleman, while willing to travel in central Asia, didn’t want to go to Afghanistan. The couple knew she was pregnant before heading there.

“She was insistent she wanted to come with me from the beginning,” he said, adding he didn’t have the right to stop her.

“I laid out the options for her. I understood it increased the risk to her and the risk to me.”

 

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Ottawa Citizen reporter Andrew Duffy tweeting from the courthouse Sept 6, 2019
Andrew Duffy (@citizenduffy) | Twitter

Boyle testified about his decision to commit to Caitlan Coleman: "I entered a relationship knowing that it would bring chaos and pain. I identify as a masochist."

So he "identifies" as a masochist and yet somehow always took the role of the sadist in their S&M? Sorry Mr. Boyle, unless you can prove you enjoyed being spanked and tied up and assaulted by your wife, you have misidentified yourself.

Certainly he has brought great misfortune on himself, but that's not masochism, that's just being an ordinary idiot.

 

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Certainly he has brought great misfortune on himself, but that's not masochism, that's just being an ordinary idiot.

I think he's confused masochism with narcissism.

 

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Andrew Duffy@citizenduffy Monday Sept 9

Joshua Boyle is back on the witness stand today for cross-examination, but his testimony has been interrupted by a legal argument about what he has described as "prison sex:" why he wanted more children with Coleman while also wanting a divorce

 

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Joshua Boyle testifies he shouldered most child-care responsibilities
Sept 9

Joshua Boyle testifies he shouldered most child-care responsibilities

Testifying in his own defence Monday, Boyle told court that Caitlan Coleman went days refusing to feed the child; he said their guards had to bring in formula for the infant.

“I understand that she had shut down during that period. It was not intentional,” Boyle said, ascribing the breakdown to “being the hostage of foreign criminals.”

By late 2013, more than a year into their captivity, Boyle said he had become so dismayed that he announced his intention to seek a divorce whenever they were freed.

“She had disappointed my expectations,” he said.

In addition to her treatment of the children, Boyle said, he could no longer trust his wife after she sought to leverage his mock execution in return for chocolate.

“I don’t place a high value on my life, but I place a high value on principles,” Boyle said in explaining his reaction to the episode. He added: “You don’t find out someone’s true colours until you’re in an emergency situation.”

Once they were in Ottawa, Boyle testified, Colman’s neglect of the children continued. “She had made some improvements, but she still had a long way to go,” he said.

Boyle rejected Coleman’s testimony that he had told her it was her job to look after their children.

Quite the opposite was true, he said. He estimated that he performed 95 per cent of child-care duties when they were in Ottawa. He said he took the children to six museums, six libraries and 10 restaurants.

“I told her I wanted her to take an increased role in it (child care) because I was the one doing it,” he said.
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Crown says former hostage Joshua Boyle is lying about wife's supposed failings
Monday Sept 9
Crown says former hostage Joshua Boyle is lying about wife's supposed failings

Boyle, sitting in the witness box during cross-examination, denied making the allegations up, saying Coleman was an incompetent mother who often hit their eldest child.

Boyle has denied abusing his now-estranged spouse, telling the court she was violent, unstable and prone to fits.

After witnessing Coleman's behaviour for four months, Boyle decided he would divorce her, he testified. However, he denied hating his wife, saying he knew her mind was not where it should be.

Boyle said Coleman's neglect continued once they were set free.

“I believe she was an incompetent mother, that she was not doing everything necessary,” he said.

Neubauer said if that were true, there is no way Boyle would have stayed in the marriage.

Boyle said he had decided to wait a while before leaving his wife, as he did not want their children to associate their freedom from captivity with having one of their parents ripped away from them.

Neubauer suggested Boyle hated Coleman, and that he once told his wife that if he were a secular person he would kill her.

Boyle denied saying such a thing. “I've never hated her.”

 

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This part of the trial lacks focus, IMO. It's entirely possible Boyle was simultaneously abusing his wife and taking the children out to libraries and restaurants...

I see this article was never linked, it has the initial testimony of the police officer who responded to Boyle's 911 call about his wife having left. It seems Boyle really p*** off the officer with his manipulations remarkably quickly, that's what led to the charges being laid.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/joshua-boyle-trial-march-26-2019-1.5071736

 

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I see this article was never linked, it has the initial testimony of the police officer who responded to Boyle's 911 call about his wife having left. It seems Boyle really p*** off the officer with his manipulations remarkably quickly, that's what led to the charges being laid.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/joshua-boyle-trial-march-26-2019-1.5071736

This is interesting - thanks. It would seem that, on that night, Coleman was much more stable and credible than Boyle from the perspective of the police officer.

 

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Andrew Duffy‏ @citizenduffy Sept 10 2019

Joshua Boyle said he married Zaynab Khadr with the understanding that theirs was not a permanent one. "It was not an orthodox marriage with orthodox goals," he said.

Boyle testified that on Nov. 5, 2017, he encouraged his wife, Caitlan Coleman, to bathe as she had not adopted Canadian hygiene standards after leaving captivity. A "fit" ensued, he said.

Joshua Boyle says he spanked his wife with a broom at her behest. He told court he was annoyed with her request: "I was tired of indulging her fantasies," he said.

 

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I only hit my wife with broom handle because she asked me to, Joshua Boyle testifies Sept 10

Testifying for a fifth consecutive day in his own defence, Boyle told court that he gave his wife, Caitlan Coleman, “a few half-hearted swats” on the buttocks after she asked to be spanked for mistreating their children.

“She often asked for those sorts of things,” he testified, adding later in his cross-examination, “She enjoyed it.”
Boyle said he was particularly annoyed on this occasion because she’d interrupted the children’s bedtimes.

“I was annoyed, yes. I was tired of indulging her fantasies. As I said, I was looking to get a divorce.“

Asked by Crown attorney Jason Neubauer if hitting his wife bothered him, Boyle said, “It bothered me that she wanted it and she wanted me to do it. It bothered me she still had these issues. … It was a ceremony in her mind.”

“I had no power over her and I never wished to have power over her,” he told court Tuesday.