A disabled former child singer from Quebec, Jérémy Gabriel, and his mother are suing comedian Mike Ward for more than $300,000 for Ward’s relentless mocking of Gabriel in his standup routines.
The lawsuit filed in Quebec Superior Court Tuesday alleges that Ward’s jokes had a “destructive effect” on Gabriel, who lives with a congenital facial abnormality called Treacher-Collins Syndrome, and that to this day the young man lives “constantly in fear.”
The suit comes three months after the Supreme Court ruled Ward did not breach the limits of free speech guaranteed under Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms when he ridiculed Gabriel, at the time a high