Thursday, March 28, 2024

Tattoo artists at two Victoria parlours fired after disturbing sexual assault allegations

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WARNING: This article contains graphic content relating to sexual assault.

Two tattoo artists who work at separate parlours in Victoria have been fired from their jobs after serious sexual assault allegations against them surfaced online.

Carne Tattoo on Johnson Street has announced that artist Dave Hadden has been fired after multiple disturbing sexual assault allegations were shared anonymously.

Similarly, Painted Lotus Studios on Gordon Street has stated that they’ve fired Corey Lyon after an allegation against him was posted on the same platform.

In both cases, stories were shared on the @victims_voices_canada account—an Instagram page that shares anonymous stories of sexual assault allegations against workers in the tattoo and piercing industry across Canada.

Both Lyon and Hadden have since removed their public social media profiles.

Dave Hadden, Carne Tattoo

In a statement on their Instagram profile shared on July 8, the owners of Carne Tattoo stated that Hadden no longer works at their parlour.

They acknowledged that they were made aware of an incident in March 2019 after a customer emailed the parlour to make sexual assault complaints against Hadden.

“At the time, we worked closely with the survivor to determine a path forward. It was our understanding that the situation had been resolved to the satisfaction of the survivor,” reads the statement from Carne Tattoo.

“In retrospect, we should have terminated this employee immediately as this disgusting behaviour has no home in our industry or our shop and our failure to immediately act upheld a system that protects aggressors and continues the cycle of victimization.”

The business goes on to add that they were not made aware of any other sexual assault complaints against Hadden until last weekend when more anonymous allegations were posted on the Victims Voices Canada Instagram page.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCZfKrHj5cr/

While this is not confirmed, the initial complaint against Hadden corresponds with a comment on another allegation against him.

This complainant states that Hadden performed non-consensual “digital sex” on the woman by slipping his fingers under her underwear, and spent about half of a four or five hour tattoo session “with his fingers inside” her.

Over the past weekend, two more allegations against Hadden surfaced on the social media page. In one of them, the survivor states that he grabbed her chest multiple times and, while working on a tattoo on her thigh, had his free hand placed on her vagina.

The last allegation that was posted on Thursday afternoon shares a story that is almost exactly the same as the first one.

The woman says she was getting a tattoo that extended down to the front of her hip, to an area that is covered by underwear.

“Near the end of the tattoo while working on the part that’s usually covered by underwear or bathing suits he managed to slip his fingers under my underwear (which at the time I thought was accidental) and was maneuvering them within the lips of my vagina,” reads the post.

“I had a friend with me who noticed and we talked afterwards about how that was a little off but I never chalked it up to anything until I read the first story shared by a survivor.”

The post goes on to thank others for speaking out about their experiences which allowed her to “admit to being assaulted instead of normalizing” the incident.

Corey Lyon, Painted Lotus Studios

In a statement posted on July 7, Painted Lotus Studios announced the termination of their employee, Corey Lyon, after a disturbing sexual assault allegation surfaced against him earlier this week.

The story was posted on the same Victims Voices Canada page on Sunday, and alleged that Lyon performed non-consensual “aggressive” oral sex on the customer while doing her under bust tattoo.

“I enquired about an underbust [tattoo] while there after hours (we knew each other outside the shop a bit, too) he asked me to pull my shirt up and eventually to lift my bra up, exposing my breasts,” reads the post.

“I honestly thought it was necessary, maybe for the tattoo placement to look right (I was a lot younger). I didn’t clue into it being not needed until he said ‘hmm the lighting is bad’ and physically picked me up and put me on his table beside his light.”

“That’s when the little lightbulb in my head went on and I realized this was sexual. This was close to another particularly traumatizing sexual assault experience, so I froze up and allowed everything else that happened to happen including aggressive oral sex.”

The survivor of the assault goes on to state that after the incident, she texted Lyon and arranged to meet up in order to tell him how she felt about the incident and talk about “the power dynamic that he abused”, but Lyon never showed up at the agreed upon time and place.

After the post was shared, multiple people tagged Painted Lotus Studios demanding an appropriate response.

Two days later, the business shared the news that Lyon is no longer employed by them.

“As a female-owned and predominantly female employed shop, we take this subject VERY seriously. As survivors and friends of survivors ourselves, this has been difficult and triggering processing our emotions,” reads the post from Painted Lotus.

“To the poster: We truly understand how hard it is to speak up about these issues, and if healing is possible we would be grateful to assist in yours however we can, anonymously if that’s your preference.”

Since its creation just five days ago, the Instagram page Victims Voices Canada has shared dozens of anonymous accounts of sexual assault against workers in the tattoo and piercing industry across Canada.

Their mission statement says the purpose of the page is to “give voice to survivors of sexual assault and harassment” in the industry and “shine a light into the dark recesses of our community” to create positive change.

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Brishti Basu
Former Senior Staff Writer and Content Manager at Victoria Buzz.

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