Woman who accused Trudeau of groping issues statement

The woman, who had accused Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of groping her at the start of the millennium, on Friday issued a statement revealing herself to be former journalist Rose Knight.

Senior reporter at CBC News Catherine Cullen took to her Twitter handle to post an image of the statement.

"The woman who made the groping allegation against Justin Trudeau in 2000 has issued a statement, including her name. #cndpoli," she wrote, attaching the statement alongside.

A report had appeared in the Creston Valley Advance in the year 2000 after the Kokanee Summit in Creston, a music festival, which accused Trudeau of "groping" and "inappropriately handling" a young female scribe who was covering the festival.

It also stated that the anonymous woman had felt "blatantly disrespected" by Trudeau, reports CBC News.
It further stated that Trudeau had apologised after the incident.

"I'm sorry. If I had known you were reporting for a national paper I never would have been so forward," the report quoted Trudeau as saying.

Knight says in her statement that she issued it "reluctantly" and that she "did not pursue the incident at the time and will not be pursuing the incident further," while also stating that she did not issue it earlier out of concerns for her family's privacy.

She also stated that she, "did not pursue the incident at the time and will not be pursuing the incident further." She also mentions that she had no subsequent contact with Trudeau, before or after he became Prime Minister.

Earlier, on Thursday, Trudeau, while commenting on the allegations said, "Again, I've been reflecting on the actual interaction and if I apologized later, then it would be because I sensed that she was not entirely comfortable with the interaction that we had."

"Like I said, I've been working very hard to try and piece it together, and even when the original editorial came out at the time I was fairly confident, I was very confident, that I hadn't acted in a way that I felt was in any way inappropriate," he added.

(ANI)