HALIFAX — A former sex researcher has told a Nova Scotia court she doesn't believe that a licence plate bearing the surname of a retiree - "Grabher" - would promote sexual violence against women, as the provincial government has alleged.
Debra Soh, a science journalist and former academic researcher, told Nova Scotia Supreme Court that the word would have no impact on the average, socially adjusted person.
She says she wouldn't expect anyone to act in a sexually violent way after seeing the plate unless they were anti-social and already predisposed to such behaviour.
Lorne Grabher has been trying to reinstate his personalized licence plate since it was revoked in 2016 by the Registrar of Motor Vehicles following an anonymous complaint.
Grabher first purchased the plate as a gift for his late father around 1990, and he says it expressed family pride in their Austrian-German heritage.