The former headquarters of Peter Nygard’s now-defunct clothing company at 1 Niagara St., in Toronto, is pictured on Sept. 28, 2023. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Greenspan also did a brief overview of the testimony of all five of the women, posing the question to the jury whether the evidence the complainants presented was possible to have occurred.
Greenspan suggested that despite Nygard’s inability to recollect the women, some of the details they testified to in court could have happened. For example he said some of their evidence about how they initially met Nygard on flights could be possible.
But other details court heard were either unlikely, impossible, absurd or pure nonsense, Greenspan said.
“What never occurred were the sexual assaults described by each of the complainants,” he said.
‘Contradictions and innuendo,’ defence says of Crown’s case
The Crown’s case, Greenspan said, was based on “contradictions and innuendo” and that the Crown would often advance a position that “simply makes no common sense.”
Revisionist histories of events had been advanced as if they presented a clear picture of events 18 to 35 years ago, Greenspan said.
Greenspan also suggested that some of the women had been motivated to testify against Nygard because they had joined a U.S. class action lawsuit against him.
“Gold digging runs deep,” he said about the fourth complainant to testify, who has also joined the class action lawsuit.
Referring to the testimony of another of the women, who said they had been taken on a tour of the building by Nygard, Greenspan said she had described his office building to include “a non-existent grand sweeping staircase leading up several floors.”
“A figment of her imagination,” he said.
He said she got other details wrong, about hallways and showrooms that “simply don’t exist.”
“This imagined journey is not merely flawed recollection or result of the passage of time. It’s Alice in Wonderland.”
On Wednesday the judge will make his charge to the jury after which they will begin their deliberations.