Wednesday, March 13, 2013

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday, March 13, 2013

The war of words between Mayor Rob Ford and the former mayoral candidate who accused him of groping her escalated on Sunday.

Ford said on his Sunday afternoon radio show that he questions whether Sarah Thomson is “playing with a full deck.” Thomson fired back later in the day with a statement that she wouldn’t be silenced. “Decades ago powerful men who sexually assaulted women would call them ‘hysterical,’ or ‘crazy’ to debase their credibility,” the statement read in part. “It pushed many assaulted women into silence . . . He will not push me into silence and I hope his accusations do not reignite the old fears that once silenced women.”

While Thomson has not yet gone to the police, she told the Star she would “wait and see” before making that decision.

Thomson, transit advocate and publisher of the Women’s Post, first posted on Facebook in the early hours of Friday morning that Ford “grabbed my ass” as they posed for a picture at a party held by a Jewish political group just hours before.

Thomson also said that Ford made a suggestive comment that she should have joined him on a recent trip to Florida because his wife was not there.

The post and accompanying picture, Ford with his eyes closed and a grin on Thomson’s face, ignited a firestorm of controversy. Ford immediately called the groping allegations “absolutely, completely false.” (Source: Metro News Toronto) http://metronews.ca/news/toronto/590020/mayor-rob-ford-questions-if-groping-accuser-sarah-thomson-is-playing-with-a-full-deck/