All language subtitles for no.place.to.hide.the.rehtaeh.parsons.story.2015.1080p.web.h264-cbfm

Hi, my name is Rehtaeh Parsons.

I...

have lots of friends.

My boyfriend's name is Grant.

[laughs]

Rehtaeh was

very quiet

approached things
very cautiously.

She worked better alone
she found the large

groups very noisy

and she was kind of sensitive.

Is it over yet?

She always constantly had
a smile on her face,

she was always happy.

One of those babies I
think people hoped for.

I was the first person
to hold her in my arms,

very little crying but
always a sense of wonder.

Hey,

what a good boy.

I got that dog from
Rehtaeh actually.

She said that there
was a pug at the SBC

and he was abandoned,

I'm glad Rehtaeh
volunteered there

because that's where
he came from.

Chattery dog.

She was very intelligent.

When she was 13 years old

she was reading
Jane Goodall books.

There's always pre-teen
magazines everywhere

but Rehtaeh would be
the one who goes in

and looks at the science section
for an astronomy magazine

so she could learn
about black holes.

I have no idea where
that came from.

It certainly didn't
come from me.

No Frankie.

Come here Frankie.

Rehtaeh actually
worked to rehabilitate

many dogs in this house.

These are all rescue dogs

from different situations.

We've rescued 700 dogs.

This is Rehtaeh's favourite
dog right here, jazzy.

She even has her
little fun bone today

justice for Rehtaeh.

It's a very different name

Tell me how she got her name?

When I was about 12,

my niece's name was heather

so I spelt heather backward
and I was Rehtaeh,

that's nice.

Did she like her name?

She loved her name,

she was very proud of her name.

When she about 12,

I found that was the age
that she challenged me most.

She was very strong willed

she was the reason I
went to university,

two degrees so I did
seven years straight.

She was my driving
force and my focus.

Then we moved here when
she started school and...

Cole harbour is the biggest
suburb of Dartmouth.

Pretty much a typical
suburb in every way.

There isn't as much to do there,

as there is if you
live downtown,

but there're a ton of kids

and teenagers living there

and there's a big
hockey culture there.

If you know, Sydney Cosby
is from Cole harbour.

This is her junior high school,

she came out of this
school with straight A's

and then she started
at Cole Harbour High.

Cole harbour high is a
pretty big high school.

It's had some
problems in the past

but there isn't that much to
set the high school apart.

Even though you have the
same friends your whole life

other schools are filtered
into that high school

so now you have
this diverse group

and she met a new friend there.

This was a Wednesday night

and I remember it because
she was sitting in my car.

High school just started,
how is everything going

we always had these discussions.

I said, "who are you going
to this party with?"

she mentioned the girl's name

I said "well is that a
new friend of yours?"

she said, "yeah that's
a new friend of mine."

I said, "okay."

I remember this
just clear as day.

"are the friends with
you the kind of friends

who are going to make
sure you are okay?"

she said, "yeah of
course they are,

of course they're okay."

she got out of the car

and really the next
I saw my daughter

she was not my daughter anymore.

She asked if she could
have a sleep over

at this girl's house and
I agreed that she could.

Something really traumatic
happened to her.

They went over to
this boy's house.

I had no idea that it was
going to turn into a party

but they offered vodka

she started drinking
vodka straight.

I was going home to
visit my mom in Ottawa

and we're sitting on a plane

I got a text message
from Rehtaeh

and it said, "I need to
come live with you."

I'm texting her
back "are you okay

is everything all
right?" I text her

"I'm on the plane and
we're starting to move."

My sister said "you need
to come home right away."

she said, "Rehtaeh is
here and she needs you

Rehtaeh was culled up in
the kitchen in a ball

rocking herself back and forth.

She just said everything
that she could remember.

Her and her friend went
to another friend's home

where two boys lived

and they were there hanging out

two other guys had stopped then

that were friends of the two.

They got vodka and she
really didn't know

the effects of what that alcohol
was going to do to her.

She remembers being
led upstairs,

she remembers them taking
turns on top of her

and she remembers
hitting her head

on the window because she
started to throw up.

She does remember
somebody saying

take a picture, take a picture.

The next morning she woke
up in a different room

between the two other males
that were in the house.

She didn't put the pieces
together right away.

Rehtaeh's mom called
me and she said,

"I need to tell you something."

I said, "okay."

she goes, "you really need
to sit down and get ready."

because she said,
"this is the worst."

I said, "okay what's wrong?"

she said that when Rehtaeh
went to that sleep over,

they went down street
to another house

and there was boys there
and they raped her.

I just wanted Rehtaeh
to know I said,

"I love you and this
is going to be okay,

we'll get through this."

The story came out that
Rehtaeh was a slut

on Tuesday at school and
they're all bragging about it.

Rehtaeh parsons slept
with four guys.

Her reputation right there in
school spread like wild fire

and that's when she contacted me

and she was just in panic

she couldn't believe
this happened.

She got to school

realized that everybody
was talking about her

and that something had happened.

Then found out when
she was at school

that this photo which she
didn't even know existed

had been texted around
from kid to kid

and that a lot of people
had seen it already.

Someone came up to her
and said, "did you see?

I can't believe that picture
of you and you're a slut."

He decided to start spreading
the photograph around,

"this is me and this
is Rehtaeh parsons

and I'm having sex with her

as she hangs out a
window throwing up."

man it's hard for me
to get my head around

how someone could do
something so sick like that.

Right there you really think

that someone throwing
up wants to have sex?

She found out what
was in the photo

and she left school

and she never went
back to that school.

It went viral, it literally
spread everywhere.

The local newspaper
did a story on this

and they said it
would shared with

probably hundreds of kids

and not just in
Rehtaeh's school,

not just in Cole Harbour High

but with the whole
school district.

High schools in the whole city.

That's when it started

and as soon as she became,
I'd call it being a target,

everyone started
saying things to her.

No one came around anymore.

That happened on a Thursday;

Friday Rehtaeh had a
nervous breakdown.

We went to the
police the next day.

She went to the police
station with her mom,

she sat down she made a
statement to the police.

She gave her statement
for two hours

and then a few days later
they called to say

that we gave it to
the wrong person.

The police said that officer

you gave your statement
to wasn't authorized

to take the statement so you
have to come make it again.

She had to do that
again for ten hours.

Between those two periods

even as someone who has
being really intoxicated

will know things can
come back to you

and that's when it
came back to her

that she remembers
saying no to somebody.

What they did was they
took the two statements

they looked at them
both and said,

"well these aren't the
same, you're confused."

if there's any discrepancy

in those two statements,
they used that against her.

Almost right away in
this investigation,

they started to treat Rehtaeh
like she was the person

that they were going
to investigate.

The police investigated
for almost a year.

The police did not seize the
cell phones or the laptops

or anything belonging to
any of the boys involved.

Four males assaulting Rehtaeh

and not one of those four
males was ever brought

into a police station
for an interview.

What about the cell phones

did they seize cell phones?

They never seized a single
cell phone off of anybody.

We had to get the
photo for the police.

They had this picture and story

they never went to the
school to try to stop it

and they knew who had it, they
knew who was spreading it

and the police took no
measures whatsoever.

Not a single thing.

It almost seems like
this classic example

of making a decision
about sexual assault

right at the very start.

You look at the
overwhelming evidence

that was available to
the police in this case

that's the only thing that
makes any sense to me.

The person in charge
of the investigation

they asked her if she
interviewed the males.

She said no she's interviewing
people that had the photo

and that didn't
make sense to me.

Why would you interview
everybody around them

so that they can get together

and get their story down pat?

I would assume that you
would go directly to them

and separate them and
get their stories.

She said, "this isn't CSI
Leah we don't do that."

I hated it when they
said that to us.

This isn't CSI.

CSI ends in arrests,

CSI ends in someone going
in and enforcing the law

so we know it's not CSI

If the police are going to keep
telling people this isn't CSI

they should change the
motto on their badge

to that RCMP, this isn't CSI.

She treated me like I
had no business to ask.

She actually said to me

that I don't have to
tell you anything.

Those were her exact words to me

so I stopped speaking
to that police officer

and I went above her
to her supervisor

and above him to the person
in charge of the unit.

I remember speaking to
him and begging him.

He said, "make sure
she's in counselling

and put her in sports."

I said, "you don't understand.

Sports is not the answer."

"she's in therapy.

"right now she
wants some answers

and so what are you guys
doing in her case?"

they said it didn't look
promising for the sexual assault

because it's more of
a he said she said.

"you mean to tell me that
these pictures out there

and you're just going to say
that we're working on it?"

If they have a picture like
that and police sit there

and say, we don't
have enough evidence

to support a charge
of sexual assault,

then we have police
officers in the city

who don't understand
what sexual assault is.

Meanwhile Rehtaeh was
going through all this?

The picture just
kept circulating

kept showing up here.

During that year,

we watched Rehtaeh turn
into literally a ghost.

She said, "I'm too young to
deal with these emotions."

people they just wouldn't
leave her alone.

She lost everything,

everything she'd
worked for in school,

her dreams were down the drain,

she lost all her friends.

Then she would really upset,
"where are my friends?"

she said, "I know I have
family that loves me

but where are my friends?"

I couldn't answer that.

(music)

She switched to my school.

As the picture would follow her,

the bullying would start too

with then the girls
of the school

because girls like to completely
call people names apparently

What were the names
they'd call her?

Oh gosh here we go.

Am I allowed to say
that on camera?

Yeah

Whore, slut,

I heard some girl

call her a "prosti-tot" one time

I have no idea why.

Just stuff like that.

So it was mostly girls
who were bullying her?

Yeah.

Not guys, it's mostly girls.

I've watched her get bullied

she was standing
right next to me

and there's nothing I could do
about it, that's what's sad.

Girls would come and get
right up in her face

and physical, try to get her
to fight them and stuff.

Rehtaeh was just didn't
want to fight obviously

so she says "I don't want to
fight I don't want to fight"

they'd be trying to
fight her and stuff.

That's what girls at
my school used to do.

I'd be standing
right next to her

Some of the people that
were trying to fight her

were people I had
known for years too

so I didn't really know
what to do about it.

She had this one
girl all the time

that was really giving
her a hard time.

The forwarded messages
from this girl

what she would say
to her and stuff

and it was just horrible,
she was so mean to her

pretty much telling her
to go kill herself.

In march she actually tied
a belt around her neck

and she was actually
going to hang herself,

when she was going to do it
she heard the car pull up.

After that, she had a
bit of a breakdown.

She was afraid she was
going to hurt herself.

I drove her to the
emergency IWK hospital

downtown Halifax.

We thought, "this is great,

she's going to get the help
she needs in the hospital."

I left the hospital that night

crying and upset

but also feeling relieved

because I'm thinking in my
mind, "she's got help now.

"these are the professionals

"they're going to change
her suicidal thoughts

into something positive."

That was another bad experience.

There was no trauma specialists.

When she did act out in there
they put her in lockdown unit

put her in a room and
they left her there

for 24 hours by herself and
nobody went to talk to her.

That's a story in itself
at the children hospital

The staff at the hospital
stripped her at one point.

She said male staff
nurse stripped her

and locked her in a room

basically wearing just
maybe her underwear.

They took her clothes off her

then she was screaming,

"give me my clothes back."

then she was saying,

"why are those men
here I am naked."

that's in a hospital where
she went to get help.

They treated her
like a delinquent

instead of being treated
for the trauma.

The hospital came out and said,

"that doesn't happen
here in this hospital."

then what happened is
all these other parents

came up and said "wait a second

"that happened to
my daughter too.

Men were there when her
clothes were off."

a day later the
hospital reiterated

"that does happen here
in extreme circumstances

but it never happened to RP."

then a witness went to
the press and said,

"I was there when RP was there

"and I remember her screaming
for her clothes back

and I remember men being there."

This is a sexual assault victim.
It was ridiculous.

She ended up staying
there for five weeks

and I will say it was
a stupid stupid thing

for me to ever leave
her in that hospital

I wish to god I had taken
her home that day.

Everything was worse
when she left there.

She was far more angry.

She learned to cut her
wrists and her arms in there

she felt that she was suicidal

the day they discharged her and-

Why would they discharge her

if she's still feeling suicidal?

They felt she was
there long enough.

I'm in the room
alone with Rehtaeh

and I looked at her
and she looked at me

and she goes, "dad
I'm going to die."

We begged them when she left

to put her somewhere.

They signed her up for
a drug rehab program.

She said, "I don't
want to go that,

it's stupid I'm not
a drug addict."

but there's going to
be other help there.

There'll be counsellors and
people you can talk to."

she goes, yeah but I'm
not a drug addict

They have a drug
treatment program

so whatever the mental
health issue is it's drugs

it's a rubber stamp -
drugs drugs drugs.

A kid coming in here
and they're suicidal

and they're traumatized,
they're a drug addict

I took her there on the
first day she promised me

she'd give it a chance she
called me up 20 minutes later

really upset and I said,

"OK I've seen her
like this before."

A kid from Cole Harbour High

a boy who knows what
happened to her

and is friends with the
kids who assaulted her

was sitting there glaring at her

in her first meeting
for drug counselling.

Did no one ever read her file?

She came over here
to live with us

after she got out
of the hospital

and her stay was so bad there

a few months after she
left she was upstairs here

and she was crying and upset.

I heard her ask for me

and I went up to her bedroom
and her arms were cut up

and the sheets were all bloody

and I'm just, "oh god Christ."

one the worst decision
I ever made in my life

was putting my daughter
in that hospital.

This whole time we're
still dealing with police

and then finally he said,

"there's not going
to be any charges...

for the sexual assault or
the child pornography."

Police laid out their case

before the crown prosecutors

and they got an
almost immediate no

that the prosecutors
were not interested

in taking it to court.

Police went back and told
Rehtaeh and her parents.

Rehtaeh was, according to her
parents, she was devastated.

Oh, she was outraged.

She stomped around,
she was angry,

she was yelling, "how dare they?

Everyone is going to
still think I am a slut

and they're walking
around smiling

and look what we got away with."

the injustice of it all was
really that set her back.

Then she tried to
go back to school

she said, "I want to go
because I feel I have

enough friends around
me now to support me

that I'm strong enough."

and she wasn't allowed
into Cole Harbour High,

they wouldn't allow
her to go there.

I sat there in the
office and he said,

"she can't comeback
to this school."

I said, "why?"

he said, "she transferred
out of this area

you are not allowed to
transfer back into this area."

I said, "well her home is here

and you are aware of the reason

why she transferred
out of here."

he's all, "I'm well
aware of why."

I said, "okay so the boys
are walking in this school,

"they are allowed to be here

"and you're going to tell us

"that she's not
allowed to be here

so you're victimizing
her all over again?"

They never really let up

with the texting and
the harassment.

She had been taking records
of the various things

that were sent to her

and she would send
them to the police.

When the police came
back after all that time

and just said,
"there is no case.

We can't take it forward."

she got really upset
that one night in April

and tried to kill herself,
which her parents

I think really never truly
believed she would do.

That evening I was
downstairs in bed,

she came in and her friend Jenna

was living here at the time too.

I could hear Rehtaeh's
voice raising;

She was on the phone
with her boyfriend.

When she got off the phone,
I guess she said to Jenna,

"fuck this I'm going
to the bathroom

I'm going to hang myself."

then she locked herself
in the bathroom.

Jenna said she tried
to open the door

and was talking to her
through the door saying,

"Rehtaeh, open the
door, I love you."

she said, "all of a sudden

Rehtaeh stopped talking to me."

I came up and grabbed
something in the drawer

on the way to get it in,

but I could feel her weight
on the back of the door.

I honestly didn't think
there was anything

in the bathroom that she
could hang herself on

so I was surprised
to feel her weight.

It's like you go to autopilot.

I said to Jenna,
"give me scissors,

give me a phone we
need to dial 911."

I cut the belt off her neck

and I had her laying
on the floor.

Jason started working on her,

he could do CPR and he did that.

Then they came in and worked
on her for half an hour,

so it was 45 minutes
without any pulse.

When she got to the hospital,

I remember one nurse was
pretty blunt with us and said,

"this doesn't look good

and she is probably
going to die."

I can hardly remember
it, it's such a blur

but I think I just screamed
my daughter is dead...

and God, I'm out the door
as fast as we could.

I said, "guys I'm glen cunning.

Rehtaeh parsons is here
and she is my daughter."

when they buzzed me in

I could see the far
end of the hospital,

here comes this doctor
walking really fast

he is holding his hands
up like this and he said,

"what do you know? Just
tell me what you know."

I said, "well I know
that she hanged herself

"and I know that they
are having problem

finding any brain activity."

he said, "I'm just
going to be honest,

"this will be as
grim as it will get

and she is not going
to recover from this."

I went in to see
her laying there.

It's something I regret
because on the way home,

she asked me to
stop at McDonalds.

But I was too tired.

It was after nine, I
just wanted to go home.

I said, "let's just go home

it's too late to eat
junk food blah, blah."

I remember when I went
over and kissed her

and I whispered "wake up
I'll take you to McDonalds"

it was a long, long
three or four days

in the hospital.

She...

she never woke up.

(music)

Her mom went home and wrote
a message on Facebook

that she had lost her daughter

following sexual assault
and people bullying her.

It was just a Facebook post

and it seemed like it
triggered something in people

you hear about viral things
happening on the internet.

This just absolutely
exploded, I don't know why.

I wrote that first story

and then everything
really blew up.

It just got much bigger

than I ever thought
it was going to get.

Then anonymous got involved.

(anonymous video music)

Greetings citizens of the world,

we are anonymous.

Yet again, we bring to
you another tragic story

of yet another young life
taken from us so early.

Rehtaeh parsons, 17, leaves...

The next thing I knew

anonymous got involved
with the story

and I'm not sure how they did

but I've heard that they
looked at me and her mother

and what we were writing
as a cry for help.

Our thoughts and prayers

go out to her
family and friends.

Rehtaeh was a victim
of gang rape,

also a victim of
constant bullying.

I took it personal.

It wasn't in another
country or city

it was in Halifax where
I grew up all my life.

I have a daughter
same age as Rehtaeh

I hear they take her phone
and they investigate her

and they didn't even
speak to the boys

and didn't talk to them,
didn't take their devices,

didn't check their accounts,
didn't do anything.

I'd be upset too.

They would release
YouTube videos

every couple of days

and they knew a lot about
the case really quickly.

They do this thing called doxing

where they go and trace
somebody's presence online.

We can confirm the identities

of two of the four
alleged rapists.

If we were able to locate
these boys within two hours,

it will not be long before
someone else finds them.

At one point, they
threatened to release

the identities of
the boys involved.

It is important
for Nova Scotians

to have faith in their
justice system.

Better act fast.

They present themselves

as this Robin Hood of
the justice system

and it really caught the
imagination of people.

When anonymous got involved

it became even bigger still.

Our demands are simple.

We want the RCMP to take
immediately legal action

against the individuals
in question.

You will be held accountable
for your failure to act.

I couldn't even tell you

the amount of interviews
BBC, CNN, stations in Japan,

Columbia, china,
Russian news stations,

all across Canada

every major media company
you can think of.

I have a friend in Saudi Arabia

and he wrote me a
message, "what happened

you are in the news over
here in Saudi Arabia?"

what ended up happening

people were realizing if
anonymous is involved

then they cant assume they
are going to be hidden.

One of the males who was there
that night was realizing,

"shit people are going
to know who I am.

"they are going to
release my name

I need to tell my
side of the story."

I received a Facebook message

from one of the males.

He was scared for safety
after Rehtaeh died.

He said, "everyone hates me now

"I don't know what to do,

I'm crying I need
to talk to you."

Leah was like, "no,

"I'm not interested in having
a conversation with you.

"if you've got anything to say

you can say it right
here right now."

as amazing as it sounds

he wrote this long
Facebook confession.

Me and (beep) were up having
sex with her and she was ok

and about 15 minutes
after (beep) left,

she looked like she
was going to get sick

and we both helped her
over so she could get sick

and she was out the window
for about five minutes.

We asked her if she
was okay she said,

"I'm fine you guys keep going."

I told (beep) go ahead

and he told me to go ahead.

We picked her up, carried
her to the window

she leaned out she
started to throw up

about five minutes,

who's going first?

What he is talking about

is about having sex with her

not sure if it was
my phone or his

but the photo was taken
without her noticing.

Me being a drunk idiot
I posed for the photo.

After she got out of the window,

we laid her on the
bed to go to sleep.

You could have said
what he told me

right on top of
what she told me.

He filled in all the blanks.

The other two boys we
asked them to help us

bring her to the spare
room so we woke her up

and she didn't want
to go downstairs

so we picked her up and she
hit him in the face once.

Then we kept bugging
her to get up

and she finally did

and walked down the
stairs to the spare room.

She laid in the bed and I
remember (beep) telling her

to kiss him and stuff (beep).

I asked everyone
to leave the room,

I left the room and
sat on the couch

and he came out 20 minutes later

with a smirk on his face.

I had curfew so I told
him I had to go home,

he walked me to the
door, gave me props.

I woke up the next
day and he told me

that she had sex
with [inaudible].

Christ!

This is him saying, "I
raped Rehtaeh parsons."

Rehtaeh's mom did a
screen capture of it

and called the police.

Then anonymous put
up this YouTube video

saying they had gotten
their confession.

They said to the justice
minister of Nova Scotia

if you don't open
this case again

and see justice
done in a courtroom

we are going to come after you

and we are going to expose
the boys' identities.

Since the police are useless

we as citizens must stand
together and say no more.

Remember this day.

They opened the case again.

The RCMP did reopen
the investigation.

They were very specific to say

that it was not about
any information

that had come in online
or anything like that,

that it was old-fashioned people

coming forward from
the community.

Involving the child
pornography specialists

this time around
when she had died.

I'm very thankful that
they did what they did.

The police had months,
months and months

to do something to
protect Rehtaeh,

they watched that image

be spread all over the
community, all over Halifax

and they didn't do
anything about it at all.

Nothing.

(road noise and ambient sounds)

The courtroom door is now open,

court number four.

They did charge two people.

They probably could
have charged more.

One got charged with
making and distributing

and the other one
with distributing.

Again, they said they
are not going to go

with the sexual assault.

It should have been
sexual assault.

Child pornography
it's bitter sweet.

I even asked them I said,
what about sexual assault?

They have the new Facebook
message that came through.

"what about sexual assault?

They are saying she was
drunk and throwing up."

he said, that's just
not going to happen.

Why didn't the police take
this as a confession?

I don't know, and he's
admitting that Rehtaeh

was in a state where
she couldn't walk

and she's throwing up

then she's not in a
position to give consent.

That is just the basic
flat out law in Canada.

You have to be in a state

where you are capable
of giving consent.

A girl throwing up who
needs to be carried

is not in a position to do that.

These are the words right
out of that kid's mouth

and the police knew this
before my daughter died.

I can't get over this.

It fascinated me

how the case could become
such a train wreck.

The police, it seemed
they really struggled

with any evidence that was
online or electronic,

which is how all
the evidence is.

These are all
teenagers, all they do.

Everything they do
is on their phones.

All the officers didn't
even have internet access

on their computers at work.

Or it was highly restricted.

They couldn't go on Facebook,

they couldn't look things up
the same way you or I could.

Another thing I looked at

was the attitude they took
towards sexual assault.

From what I gathered of
the police investigation,

they really kind of
would ask people,

"do you believe she consented?"

the biggest example is
when they interviewed

that other girl who been
there at that night.

The other girl who was
there with Rehtaeh,

where the hell is the
other girl, right?

She knew both of these boys.

She had dated both of them
and she came upstairs

and she was mad and
angry and she left.

They treated her as a witness

even though she hadn't
been in the room.

She definitely wasn't there
when the photo was taken

or anything like that.

They asked her if she thought
Rehtaeh had consented,

she said, 'yes'.

I asked why she was so sure
that Rehtaeh had consented,

she said, "because one
of the boys' mom's

"had been home that night.

"her bedroom was down the hall

and that she hadn't woken up."

This girl said, "if
you're getting raped

"by one person or two people,

"or in this allegation
it was four people,

"you're going to be screaming

"and you're going to be crying.

"the mom didn't wake up

"and therefore Rehtaeh
could not have been raped

because she hadn't screamed."

which completely ignores the
fact that in the criminal code

of course you can be raped
if you're unconscious.

What surprised me when
I was reporting on it

was not only how uninformed
the teenagers were

about those issues,
but their parents.

I had adults ask me, "if
somebody is unconscious

does that make it rape?"

which it does.

"even because they
drank themselves

into being unconscious
is it still rape?"

which it is.

If somebody is unconscious,
they can't consent.

Rehtaeh had said that she
had drank the equivalent

of eight or nine
shots or drinks,

over the course of the night
and she was 15 at the time.

There's a lot of uncertainty
over how drunk is too drunk,

but even beyond that
people sometimes

didn't understand that
unconscious makes it rape.

That's a very basic thing
under Canadian law.

They really didn't
know where to start

and neither did their parents

and it seems like in a way
neither did the police.

They weren't trying to
gather information.

They never interviewed the
boys ever while she was alive.

They never interviewed them

until they charged them
months after her death.

In this case, it was unbalanced

in how they had focused
so much on her.

If they can't handle that case,

how well are they handling
any sexual assault case?

When the police started
doing the investigation,

a young lady contacted
Rehtaeh and said,

"is this one of the boys
who did this to you?"

Rehtaeh said, "yeah. It was."

the girl said, "well he did
the same thing to me."

Rehtaeh was just like "you've
got to call the police.

Can you please come forward?"
everything like this.

The girl said, "after what I
saw what happened to you,

I don't want to."

We're basically
setting an example

for other victims out there

while there's not a
photo of my case,

I don't have a
confession in my case,

so what chance in hell
do I have of justice

if this girl who had all that
evidence can't get any either.

We quite literally
really do blame victims.

That's why it's easy
to get away with this.

Rape is the only crime
that I can think of

that the victim
becomes the accused.

If I was mugged downtown Halifax

and someone took my wallet and
the police investigated me...

why was I there at nighttime,
did I have a beer,

is it a misunderstanding,
do I give to charity?

If I give to charity,

then I'm used to
giving my money away.

Look at the statistics too.

Nova Scotia right now

has the worst conviction
and charge rate

for sexual assault in Canada.

You have people going
to jail in Nova Scotia

for a matter of months, when
they are found guilty of rape.

On average, by the
time a man ends up

even in a courtroom he has
six victims behind him.

95 percent of rape victims they
believe are telling the truth.

So that means 5
percent of the men,

or the rapists are
telling the truth.

We should treat the
cases like that,

rather than go right off the bat

and treat it his word,
her word, she loses.

You see it over and
over again in any article

you ever read about
a rape situation.

All you have to do is
go to the comments

to see it's alive and well.

People are ignorant and abusive

and there are trolls
on the internet.

Someone wrote up a Facebook page

called Rehtaeh dead parsons.

They stole pictures
off Facebook page

and they photoshopped where
they are bugging out.

They photoshopped belts
around her neck.

They made comments like,

'hey Rehtaeh how's it hanging'.

They would show a
picture of a dead body

hanging in a tree and it
was probably the vilest,

sickest most disgusting thing
I've ever seen in my life.

I wrote Facebook and I said,

"look my daughter just died.

"her name is Rehtaeh parsons
it's all over the news.

"it's a huge
international story.

"I want this Facebook
page taken down.

"it's mocking her death.

It's insulting and disgusting."

Facebook wrote back
to me and said,

"we reviewed that page

and it doesn't violate
our standards."

Facebook, you've
got to be joking.

If this is your standard,

why don't you just admit you
don't have any standards?

I wrote something on my website

because I know that anonymous
is following the story.

I got an email from some weird
email address in Russia,

somewhere like that and it
just said, "glen read this."

I went and looked at the
Rehtaeh dead parsons page;

This was like a couple
of hours after.

There was a message there

that this page
hacked by anonymous.

All the images were gone,

there was just one single
post there and it said,

"the person who made this
page is this person."

it was the photograph
of the older sister

of the boy in that photograph
raping my daughter.

This was his older sister,
she's 21 years old

and she made a page like that
to mock Rehtaeh's death.

Then what happened, I got a
death threat on YouTube.

This is my YouTube channel

and every video about Rehtaeh,

even videos we would do
where she was just a child

and we were trying to
put something out there

as a memorial to her.

They would show up on
there with their filth

and their ignorance and abuse

and really, really
just mean, mean stuff.

"you were there her whole life;

"Did you ever try
being a good dad?

"you're talking to me like

"you're some kind
of important dad.

You probably raped your
daughter her whole life

it's no wonder she was
so fucked in the head."

they write this stuff to me.

"his daughter is a slut."

"she was all-tight until
everyone had sex with her."

"she sucked and had sex with
every guy in the city."

"your daughter didn't even
one high school credit."

of course she didn't,
she fell apart.

I don't know where it came from.

For somebody to be
just so goddamn mean.

Their user name was iamkarma902,

I took the iamkarma902 thing
to mean local person,

because our area code is 902.

I also took the fact

that they knew a little
bit about this case

that this may be somebody
who is involved here.

Here it is here,
"keep talking shit

"because I know your
face, your car,

"where you live, what you do.

"keep getting lippy bud

"and you might be going
to visit your daughter.

Have a good day, glen canning."

"you're going to
join your daughter."

I screen captured it

and I went to Halifax police.

Police here treated
that very seriously.

They went to the RCMP in Ottawa.

They went to the FBI
in Washington DC.

The FBI went into Google
and with a warrant

said, "we want the IP address

of the one who made
this comment."

from Google it went
back to the FBI

and then it went
back to the RCMP

and then it went to the
police here and they said,

"we made an arrest
in this case."

they said his name, which I
don't think I can legally say.

They told me who it was.

The person who it was

is the person who's in the
photograph with Rehtaeh.

Interviewer: Same kid
doing the thumbs up?

Same guy doing the thumbs up.

Giving the big thumbs
up with a big smile.

Isn't that sad, you did
enough damage to our daughter

that she ended up
without a will to live

and you've got to be so
filthy on how you go about it

you even reach out to
us when we are grieving

and start insulting us
and threatening us too.

There's no remorse
with this kid at all.

(indistinct speaking)

Bullying today
is so much far worse

and so much more
devastating to people.

It's not something you
can get away from.

I was bullied in grade seven.

I was beat up in school

but I could go home
and I'm safe at home.

Nowadays the way
kids communicate

there is no getting
away from it.

It's everywhere.

People take out cell phones

and they take a video
of you getting beat up

or they are all laughing at
you and calling you a loser.

The next thing you know there's
100 people telling you

to go kill yourself on Facebook

and on your profile and
sending tweets out

with the video on there
of you getting beat up.

Girls can get away
with bullying so much more.

More and more young girls

are committing suicide
because of it,

because it's easy to call a
girl a slut over Facebook.

It's so easy to
send her a message

and tell her how much
of a whore she is.

Something needs to be
done about it honestly.

I see it all the time.

After Rehtaeh's death,

there were some responses
by a lot of politicians.

We're just sickened
seeing a story like this.

Steven harper said

we've got to stop
calling this bullying

and start calling it for what
it is; Criminal harassment.

I couldn't have agreed more.

Bullying to me

is a connotation of
kids misbehaving.

What we are dealing with in
some of these circumstances

is simply criminal activity.

(applause)

There's a great big upheaval

and screaming about bill C-13,

"oh my god! It's going to
be an invasion of privacy

and all our stuff is going to
be available to everybody."

No it's not.

It addresses a few
different things.

One of them is the distribution

of intimate images
without consent.

Peter McKay, minister of justice

has referred to that
as Rehtaeh's law

because when that photo was
being spread all over,

the police came up and said,

"well that's not
against the law."

You have failed marriage
or relationships

and they have images of you

that would be very embarrassing.

Revenge porn, I
think it's called,

and they post them all
over the internet

to humiliate people,

it's not illegal
and it should be.

Another one, it's going to
address issues of the police

being able to go to
internet service providers

and get information
they need when crimes

are being committed online

and to get that
information quickly.

Which I think is going to
make a huge difference

and that's why I
support this law.

They could have this kid
arrested in a matter of days.

Hours even, if the right
laws were in place.

It should not take
eight/ten months,

what it took in my case
for a death threat.

What if I was a
vulnerable person

and I was actually really
afraid for my life?

What if it was
like an ex-husband

who's been threatening
to murder me?

You want to wait eight months
to hear back from Google?

Much rather than be eight hours.

We can't just sit
here with the whole,

'we're going to protect
free speech' crap.

You're not protecting people
who are using free speech

to make the world better.

You're just protecting a bunch
of trolls and criminals

and paedophiles and child
molesters and rapists.

These are places
you live in too.

Employees live in this
kind of communities.

What kind of communities
do they want?

It's not free speech,
it's hate speech.

(music and ambient sounds)

He's plead guilty.

It actually happened
and it's emotional.

(music)

Interviewer: Do you
think you're closer

to getting justice for Rehtaeh?

There'll never be
justice for Rehtaeh;

She just wanted to be validated

instead of being blamed
for her own crime.

The fact that he has
plead guilty...

part of me feels
some solace in that.

His guilty plea here today,

tells everyone the police knew

child porn was being
spread around Halifax,

and they didn't do
anything to stop it

and also at Cole Harbour High.

They knew child porn
was being distributed

in their halls of their school

and they didn't do anything
to stop it at all.

What that means really
is they did nothing

to protect the victim.

That to me is just wrong.

That big question
had to be asked:

Why wasn't something done

while it would have
made a difference?

(water lapping and music)

The stones,

I started by painting
memory stones for Rehtaeh.

A way for me to feel
calm is just to paint.

We place these everywhere we go.

Something very spiritual
about the stones.

She grew up, a part
of her, here in this park.

It played a big
role with Rehtaeh.

It's very fitting that
this park is so beautiful.

It was really nice.

People say time
heals all wounds...

but it doesn't.

A big, big part of me

died in that hospital
room with my daughter.

I felt like I was having
an out of body experience.

We already decided
we'd be organ donors

then they said the
recipients aren't all ready

and that was a real dilemma
for me at that moment.

I didn't really feel comfortable

with them keeping
her body alive.

I almost changed my mind.

Lucky we did because one
of them was a teenager

that received her heart.

That child would have died

if I would have changed my mind.

There's five lives she saved.

In spite of all
this grief and upset,

it is nice to know that she
is still out there today,

some of her anyways, is still
out there, very much alive

and has changed people's lives
for the better for sure.

(music)

It's happening everywhere.

I have 32 countries on my page

just because this
is a global issue.

Rape, suicide, the
cyber bullying.

As long as we let kids do
this kind of stuff like that,

we're going to get kids
get out of high school

and go out there into the world

and they are just
going to be mean.

They are going to think
getting your way

is about bullying, tormenting
and terrorizing people

who are in your way.

That's shit.

I don't want to live in
a society like that.

You think some username
like 'iamkarma902'

on YouTube means you're hidden?

He's going to be in court

for criminal harassment and
uttering death threats.

You're not anonymous,
you're not.

If you think you're anonymous,
anonymous will get you.

(chuckles)

Rehtaeh's peer group
that she grew up with

would have the same sex
Ed classes as she did -

they had never had a word
about consent in school.

First of all, don't teach women

not to wear clothes that
suggest being rape.

Teach the boys not to rape,
there's a good idea.

Secondly, the whole
suicide topic

nobody really talks about it.

Honestly, in the entire three
years I was in high school

I think the topic was
brought up once.

That's sad.

It should be part
of our education.

People should know that, there's
people they can turn to

to talk to if they're
considering suicide.

Whereas we don't
have any of that.

My school wanted to completely
forget that she even existed.

No one ever once offered her
support or offered her help.

I think maybe if they did,

maybe she'd have a chance
of still being here today.

Interviewer: Have you
ever blamed yourself?

I probably went through a phase

where I felt, not blame
myself, felt guilty.

That wasn't enough,
that "what if?"

every time I felt like that,

I would feel this almost like

a voice over my right ear,

"don't do that. Stop that."

it feels like
Rehtaeh's right there

like, stomping her foot.

I think this is so
important to reach these kids

and say, "look, it's never
a victims fault, ever."

it's not a victims fault
for rape or sexual assault

and it certainly isn't when
it comes to cyber bullying.

It's a crime.

It's the criminal's fault.

Glen (whispering): Goodbye.

Goodbye.

(laughing)