What Transpired in Court: a Blow to Blow Account
Pushing away the heavy gates of the Montreal municipal court towards FREEDOM!
The day after my trial I sent a newsletter to all my family, friends and ministry partners around the world who had been praying for righteousness, truth and justice to prevail, giving them a ‘blow to blow’ account of happenings on that eventful day, November 28, 2018. You may read it here. Acquitted! Discharged!! Free!!!
How I Ended Up in Court as an Accused Criminal.
Yaw with two CMDS members a few years ago at a McGill University medical clubs day
I am Dr. Yaw Perbi (no, not an honorary doctorate), a medical doctor by training, a pastor-missionary by calling and currently president of International Student Ministries Canada, Global CEO of The HuD Group and Catalyst for the Lausanne Movement. Up until last year (2017) I had been a mentor for the Christian Medical and Dental Society (CMDS) at McGill University in Montreal for the last seven years or so, basically since a short while after I arrived in Canada as a cross-cultural missionary.
My affinity to the group is obviously because I’m a medic myself but also particularly because I was once president of my own medical school’s Christian Medical Fellowship at the University of Ghana. This was all an informal arrangement until 2013 when I was formally engaged by the national office of CMDS, after an interview in Montreal by Executive Director Larry Worthen, to be the official Associate Staff for CMDS in Montreal. It was neither a full-time position nor fully-funded and the humble quarterly stipend I received was considered as part of my missionary pay as President of ISMC. With effect from September 30, 2017 I am no longer holding this position, voluntarily stepping down because of my scheduled furlough of eight months (September 24, 2017 to May 23, 2018) with my family in Ghana and also a sense that it is time for someone else to be a blessing to the students. I will always be around to mentor them in my former voluntary capacity, anyway.
Considering how often I’m required to drive downtown to mentor these future medics, I developed a habit of finding as much free parking as possible to go easy on my missionary budget. For CMDS meetings at the Meredith Annex, Faculty of Medicine (3706/08 Rue Peel, Montreal, QC H3A 1W9) I would typically park on the adjoining empty car park since although reserved for McGill staff our meetings are after working hours—6.30 to 8.30pm.
However, on more than one occasion over the last couple of years I have been confronted by a certain middle-aged, white man who supposedly lives in the house beyond the car park about parking in a spot not allotted to me. Over the years, all attempts at explaining to him my noble mission and the fact that I do not occupy the space during office hours have proven futile. He even once disturbed our CMDS meeting by continuously banging on the window. In frustration, I have told him more than once to call the phone number of the parking agency which runs the car park (boldly displayed on the parking posts) to tow my car away or call the police if he felt so strongly about it. For some reason he never did.
Quite honestly, the look in this man’s eye always gives me three impressions: either mentally unstable (with my medical doctor eye), demon-possessed (with my pastor-missionary eye) or plain racist (with my ‘black eye’). However, I have resisted passing judgement and treated him as humanely as I can.
On May 23, 2017, after our CMDS meeting (during which I had parked at my usual disputed spot), I stepped out of the building after 9pm (did not check the exact time) to pick up my van only to be confronted again by this same gentleman again. This time, armed with an iPad and insisting taking a photograph of me. I was enraged. Who on earth gave him the right to accost me in the first place, let alone take a photograph of me?!
It was all impacting, glorious and fun until this bizarre case!
Although extremely agitated I kept my cool to again tell him to either call the parking agency or the police if he thought I was in the wrong for parking there but that he had no right to take the law into his own hands, especially to attempt to photograph me. In fact, I even told him I didn’t mind him taking a picture of my grey Dodge Caravan or even the licence plate but there was no way I was going to allow him to take a photo of me.
This man wouldn’t budge—he kept trying to shove his iPad in my face and I kept trying to avoid it. Even when I sat in the car to drive a few feet away to the entrance of the Meredith Annex to pick up one of the students (I usually drove the then-President, Michael Destounis, home) he literally wanted to shove the ipad into the car. I managed to close the door and drive off.
Then I got in front of the Annex ostensibly to pick up Michael only to find that this man was racing towards me still with ipad-in-hand determined to shove it in my face for a photo. I was agitated; really agitated but never lifted a finger against him. The only reason I stretched out my hand was to attempt to block the camera lens of the iPad being shoved in my face so he wouldn’t get a shot of me (there was even no contact between my hand and the iPad!).
I can’t tell if he got any shots taken (hopefully none with my face in it) but I finally managed to get into the car. I had actually wanted to get back out and tell him I would report him to the police for harassing me but I hadn’t noticed the car was already in ‘drive’ and had begun to move so I quickly jumped back in to make sure Michael (who by this time had sat in my front seat, bewildered by goings-on) would be safe. I just thought I might as well drive off.
Imagine my surprise when I received a phone call a couple of weeks later from the Montreal Police, specifically one Detective Stephanie Marchand, that this man had launched a complaint against me for assaulting him. Huh?! I was shocked beyond belief. I actually felt quite done in for rather not being the one reporting him to the law for harassment!
Fortunately, I wasn’t alone. Two of the medical students present, Michael and Camilla, were present and have been willing ever since provide eyewitness accounts. I will share their versions with you in due course.
Although the Detective apparently did not see much merit in this man’s complaint she was following due process and had wanted me to pass by—and I was eager to go—and see the police to give my side of the story. Wisdom taught me though, considering the nature of things in this part of the world, that it would be better not to speak directly to the police but get my dear friend, brother and ministry partner, Lawyer John Marcogliese, to do so on my behalf.
Although the Detective apparently did not see much merit in this man’s complaint she was following due process and had wanted me to pass by—and I was eager to go—and see the police to give my side of the story. Wisdom taught me though, considering the nature of things in this part of the world, that it would be better not to speak directly to the police but get my dear friend, brother and ministry partner, Lawyer John Marcogliese, to do so on my behalf.
As far as I am concerned, Lawyer Marcogliese and Detective Marchand had been having fruitful exchanges back and forth and this ‘tempest in a teapot’ seemed to be over only for me to receive a court summons at home on September 20 while packing up and getting ready to travel to Ghana for an eight-month missionary furlough!
Although I thought with all my experience in life, by now I’ve ‘seen it all and heard it all,’ I was flabbergasted by not only all the three FALSE charges against me by this man, James Simon, but even more so that this is now a criminal case of Her Majesty against me?! How on earth could that happen?!
One of the charges is that I assaulted him with a weapon. As a medical doctor, I have written many police reports and would’ve liked to see a doctor’s report confirming physical, bodily evidence of such assault. Zilch! Another of the charges is that I wanted to steal his iPad. For real? I would be happy to donate one to James Simon. My being Black doesn’t warrant such a totally below-the-belt, unfounded, wicked accusation—let alone a formal criminal charge! Outrageous! Everything points to an unstable mental state. His medical records need to be retrieved and checked. Or perhaps this is just another case of the kind of tragic racism rearing its ugly head again all over North America these days?
Thankfully, John had spoken with an astute criminal lawyer, Lawyer Mark Paci, whose own two sons used to attend med school at McGill. He is also a friend of my co-patron of the CMDS at McGill, Dr. David Dawson. Although Mark is a distinguished lawyer with 40 years experience and would only normally deal with high profile cases like provincial fraud he was touched by my case (his own migrant family suffered horrid racism when they initially migrated from Italy decades ago!) and was willing to let truth stand and justice be done, in God’s name!
Imagine my shame when I had to walk to the police station to be photographed and get my fingerprints taken as they would do any ordinary criminal! The initial show in court was November 10, 2017, to open my defence and basically get access to the police dossier (that’s when I got to read this man’s incredible statements to the police). The next court appearance on June 14 was postponed because Detective Marchand was on vacation. Fancy that!
So November 28, 2018 was going to be the final showdown in Room 1.80 at the Montreal Municipal Court. Tune in for more.
I Stand Trial Today.
A picture of the Marmetine Prison area taken at dawn on November 27, 2018
“Now I am on trial because of my hope in the fulfillment of God’s promise made to our ancestors.” ~Paul the Apostle, A.D. 62
Although the official book of the story of God has been ‘closed’ with the canonized 66 books of the Bible, God is still writing his story every day in and through our lives.
Today, November 28, 2018, I will be defending myself against three criminal charges leveled against me by one James Simon of Montreal: assault, assault with a weapon and attempting to steal his iPad. One day, not long after this trial is over and I am vindicated, God-willing, I shall tell the full story publicly. Suffice it to say I was officially served notice in September 2017 regarding a parking incident involving the two of us in May 2017 in the course of my duty as an Associate of the Christian Medical and Dental Society (CMDS). Up until last year, for about seven years I had been mentoring medical students at McGill University. Fortunately, I had two of my medical students present at the time of the alleged incident who are willing witnesses in court today.
I have asked myself several times why God would allow such a wicked triple venom to be spewed at me and how the Montreal police and Quebec judicial system could even allow these frivolous accusations to travel this far but be that as it may I have taken great encouragement from the life of one of my top three historical mentors in the Bible: Apostle Paul.
If you should ask me, it is no accident that a day before my trial I found myself in Rome of all places (for the first time in my life). While on a five-hour transit at the Leonardo da Vinci airport en route back home to Canada I felt led to take a pilgrimage to the Mamertine prison area (Carcere Mamertino in Italian) where Paul was kept in AD 64, under house arrest for two years, awaiting trial by Emperor Nero (Acts 28:30). It was from there he penned the amazing book of Ephesians. I arrived in the frigid hours of the morning and spent quality time between 6 and 7am supplicating and interceding with tears mixed with rain to Paul’s God that my trial too will be for his praise, glory and fame.
False accusation against God-followers is an old tool of Satan the adversary and “accuser of the brethren”—from Joseph through Jeremiah to Jesus. Speaking of that and Rome, that particular Mamertine prison (carcer) has held several Christians, including Apostle Peter, especially in the time of Emperor Nero who even accused Christians as being behind the ravaging July 19, AD 64 fires of Rome. Oh, the other famous accusation was that Roman Christians hated humanity (popular till date especially among humanist-secularists).
My trial was originally slated for June 2018 but had to be postponed because the police officer who took my accuser’s statement and processed the case (without ever taking my side of the story!) went on vacation! During that time in June when my lawyer pointed out the baseless nature of the accusations to the Crown prosecutor who then sought the consent of my accuser to withdraw the case the latter said “no way,” and that I had still been coming around (during a time I was away in Ghana with my family for eight months!). He supposedly added that I was dangerous and ought to “be put away!” Ha!
Back to Paul and his inspiration regarding trials. Interestingly, only two weeks ago I was in Israel (again, for the first time in my life). When I had the opportunity of a customized one-on-one tour of selected places, one of the sites my gifted Jews for Jesus tour guide, Dalia, felt strongly we should visit (and at that time the name meant nothing to me) was Caesarea Maritima. Dalia must’ve been led by God’s Spirit unbeknownst to her. I was familiar with the other Caesarea, Caesarea Philippi, where Peter had made his famous divinely-inspired confession about Jesus: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” But Caesarea Maritima, that strategic port Herod the Great built along the Mediterranean, did not ring a bell. Yet it was here that I got to walk on the very grounds of the room that Apostle Paul was kept in as prisoner two years earlier (AD 62) than the Roman incarceration while being tried by Festus and Felix (Acts 24-26). Was my pilgrimage to Caesaria Maritima an accident or a ‘God-incidence’?
The floor of Paul’s prison in Caesarea Maritima (taken on November 15, 2018)
God is still writing his story in the lives of his people and his earlier recorded stories are for our inspiration and instruction. Incidentally, when St. Paul wrote to the very Romans many years prior that was his exact encouragement: “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope” (Romans 15:4, NIV).
Today, I too will be standing trial, comforted by the words of Apostle Paul that, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” (2 Corinthians 4:8-10, NIV). I am counting on Jesus, who not only knows how it feels like to be falsely accused and unfairly tried but made his followers, like me, a solemn promise: “On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Matthew 10:18-20, NIV).
In a court case I call “a bizarre cocktail of mental health, racism and spiritual warfare” I trust truth will prevail, justice will be served and ultimately God will be glorified. God is still writing his story in our lives every day, even today. And He has the last word. Be encouraged.
