Glen Assoun in 2019. Credit » Tim Bousquet
Tim Bousquet, Halifax Examiner »
Glen was discarded as a child, failed at every turn through his teenage years, and then as an adult framed by Halifax police for a murder he did not commit.
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Who am I to judge Brenda and Glen’s relationship? A sex worker fighting a crack addiction involved with an uneducated, aimless alcoholic; no one would make a romcom out of this. But as I dove into their respective life stories, I saw through the stereotypes and found two distinctive, complex people, each in their way spirited and humorous, both righteous after a fashion. They found love — like everything else in their messed-up lives, it was a rocky, confused, sometimes ridiculous love, but love nonetheless. In each other, they found refuge from a community that was ignoring them when it wasn’t hating on them.
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Glen was a broken man, broken emotionally and physically. And financially. He hadn’t held a paying job in 17 years, and in his condition, he was unemployable in any event. He couldn’t provide for himself. A preacher who had befriended Glen invited Glen to live in his apartment in one of those towers by the Mic Mac Mall. I visited once. Glen did not look good, and living off the charity of others was obviously adding to his burdens.
Meanwhile, all the people who had wronged Glen — the cops who framed him, the prosecutors and judge in the kangaroo court that convicted him, the cops who destroyed evidence that should have freed him, the prison guards who beat him, the prosecutor who made even his parole so onerous that it put him in the mental health ward, the former Justice minister who refused to act on his case — all and each of them continued to live in relative wealth and comfort, respected in their careers.
Justice? Don’t talk to me about justice.
Please take a moment to read Tim’s article and to spare a thought for Glen. May he rest easy now.