Sexual Abuse Claims Blog

Perry Dunlop told the judge in charge of the inquiry into sexual abuse claims in Cornwall Ontario that:

"I will never go to that public inquiry in Cornwall even if you put a gun to my head,"

CBC news has reported that lawyers for Ontario's attorney general and the inquiry commissioner offered Dunlop one last chance to testify before the inquiry on Monday, but he refused.

We've written about Dunlop's opposition to the inquiry before:

Cornwall Sexual Abuse Inquiry Wants Former Police Officer held in Contempt

Former Police Office Arrested for Failing to Testify at Sexual Abuse Inquiry

Dunlop uncovered allegations of sexual abuse that triggered a four year police investigation resulting in more than a hundred sexual abuse charges but only one conviction.

So what do you think? Without his testimony can the inquiry ever get the full story?

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Perry Dunlop will be in court tomorrow for refusing to testify at the Cornwall Sexual Abuse Inquiry into allegations of systemic sexual abuse. Lawyers for the Inquiry want Dunlop to testify about his investigation that uncovered the Cornwall sexual abuse claims or be jailed for contempt of court.

Fifteen years ago, Dunlop's off-hours investigation of an alleged pedophile ring in which priests, politicians and business leaders in Cornwall, Ontario were accused of bizarre sexual rituals with young boys prompted a police probe dubbed Project Truth. In 1997, after four years of investigation, police laid 114 charges against 15 men. But only one person was every convicted of a sexual offence.

The Canadian Press has reported that lawyers for the Cornwall Inquiry want an example made of Dunlop for his refusal to testify.

"Mr. Dunlop has thumbed his nose at both the court and the commission. He has not merely disobeyed the order, but has done so in an open, continuous and flagrant manner," reads the commission's factum.

"Mr. Dunlop's blatant disregard for the work of the inquiry and refusal to participate diminishes public confidence in the work of the commission and should be punished accordingly."

You can read more about the charges against Perry Dunlop here.

Has too much time passed for the inquiry to ever find out what really happened in Cornwall? What do you think of Perry Dunlop's actions?

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A child who suffers from a form of autism called Asperger's Syndrome was jailed, sexually abused and subdued with stun guns while he was in the custody of provincial authorities. The New Brunswick government is now being sued over its alleged failure to properly care for the boy.

A recent report by Child and Youth Advocate Bernard Richard, that I wrote about last week found gaping holes in the province's support system for troubled children.

The lawsuit alleges that the boy was taken from his parents when he was 14 and placed in the protective care of provincial authorities.

"They thought they had no choice, but they also thought Family and Community Services would take good care of the child," said the boys lawyer

"They now realize they were wrong."

Because of his autism, the boy was bullied and isolated at group homes, as a result his behaviour deteriorated and led to police intervention.

The child was arrested when he turned 15. He was placed in a holding cell in a jail where he was repeatedly sexually abused by a guard. The guard was convicted of sexual assault.

On two other occasions, police used stun guns to bring the boy under control.

The province has denied all of the allegations in the lawsuit.

Richard's report, Connecting the Dots is an indictment of the state of mental health services for youth in New Brunswick. Unfortunately mental health services has not been a priority for many governments and it remains to be seen what steps the province of New Brunswick will take to implement the 48 recommendations in the report.

What do you think? Will the government act on the recommendations? Or are lawsuits and the threat of further litigation the only option?

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Perry Dunlop a former Ontario police officer who uncovered allegations of a pedophile ring in Cornwall Ontario was arrested his home in Duncan, B.C. on a contempt of court charge for refusing to testify at the Cornwall public inquiry looking into how authorities dealt with the allegations of a pedophile ring in the Cornwall area.

Dunlop has been credited with uncovering dozens of allegations of historical sexual abuse in Cornwall. He had stated that he had no intention of returning to the inquiry because he had lost faith in the justice system.

Dunlop was a Cornwall police officer in 1993 when he came across documents showing one alleged sexual abuse victim had received a $32,000 payout from the Alexandria-Cornwall Roman Catholic Diocese. The fallout from that discovery would eventually lead to the Ontario Provincial Police launching Project Truth the largest sexual abuse investigation in it's history.

Project Truth was a four-year investigation that laid 114 criminal sex-related charges against 15 men between 1997 and 2001. The investigation resulted in just one conviction.

Is it fair that a man who dedicated himself to protecting the rights of victims of sexual abuse is arrested as a result of an inquiry into sexual abuse? Is the inquiry worthwhile or has too much time passed to ever sortout the truth? What do you think?

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A class action lawsuit on behalf of former students of St. Andrew's College in Ontario who say they were sexually abused has suffered a set back. Students who say they were sexually abused by former teacher John Bradley have filed a class action seeking compensation.

In a highly unusual move, the proposed lead plaintiff applied to the court for an order requesting immunity from costs. In other words, if the proposed class action is not certified , or if the claim is not successful at trial, the lead plaintiff does not want to be responsible for paying costs (legal fees) to the Defendants.

Under the Ontario Class Proceedings Act an award of costs is solely within the discretion of the court.

In considering the request, Justice Lax stated:

Costs awards can be used as a powerful tool for ensuring that the justice system functions fairly and efficiently. They can promote settlement, encourage efficiency in the conduct of litigation, and sanction improper conduct. Danier, Okanagan and Little Sisters, all very recent decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada, send a strong collective message that it is the exceptional case that will warrant preferential treatment with respect to costs and that the general rule that costs follow the cause has not been displaced in litigation, even in issues of public importance. It follows that there must be very compelling reasons to immunize a litigant in advance from an adverse costs award.

Justice Lax ultimately denied the plaintiff's motion saying:

What P.M. seeks is an order that he pay no costs in any event of the cause. Such an order is rare. In the context of a proposed class proceeding where a significant portion of the costs are associated with the motion for certification (estimated by SAC to be approximately $380,000 on a substantial indemnity basis), it would not only be contrary to well-established principles for awarding costs, but unfair.

You can read the whole decision here.

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A young autistic man is sent to a mental institution where he is sexually abused. A 15-year-old boy with a long history of mental disorders is sent to a local jail and put in a holding cell where he is repeatedly sexually abused by a prison guard.

A "disturbing" new report on the treatment of children with severe mental illnesses in New Brunswick has uncovered sexual abuse and harsh treatment in several cases where troubled youths have been sent to jail.

Former provincial cabinet minister Bernard Richard is New Brunswick's Child and Youth Advocate. He released a scathing report Monday uncovering serious flaws in New Brunswick's treatment of mentally ill youth and calling for the end of "criminalization" of mental illness. The report suggests there are inadequate resources in place in the province to assist victims of mental illness.

You can read more about the report here and here.

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A man who was sexually abused by a prison guard will not receive compensation for lost wages during subsequent imprisonments according to a report in the Halifax Chronicle Herald.

When he was 18 years old, Dean Zastowny was sexually abused by former prison guard and convicted sex abuser, Roderick MacDougall. MacDougall was described in the Statement of Claim as:

"...a sexual predator who singled out teenagers."

Zastowny claimed his subsequent criminal misconduct was due, in part, to the psychological effects he suffered as a result of the sexual abuse by MacDougall. At trial he was awarded $150,000.00 in past lost wages and $50,000.00 for future income losses. The total award was $250,000.00.

But on Friday the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that:

"Zastowny’s wage loss while incarcerated is occasioned by the illegal acts for which he was convicted and sentenced to serve time," and awarding damage for wages lost while in jail "would introduce an inconsistency in the fabric of law."

Justice Rothstein said lost wages are a consequence of imprisonment.

"An award of damages for wages lost while incarcerated would constitute a rebate of the natural consequence of the penalty provided by law."

The decision is not likely to be one that generates a great deal of controversy, because the plaintiff, Zastowny, is a life long criminal, and thus not a particularly sympathetic plaintiff.

That being said, while people who commit criminal offences must be held accountable for their actions, the decision doesn't seem to address the well established rule of law, restitutio in integrum: injured persons are entitled to be compensated for any loss they have suffered that was caused, or contributed to, by the defendant's misconduct.

If Zastowny's criminal misconduct was caused or contributed to by his sexual abuse doesn't justice demand that he be compensated for the losses he suffered during his subsequent imprisonment?

You can read the Supreme Courts whole decision here.

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This article is a fascinating (at least to lawyers who represent survivors of sexual abuse) review of the development of the law in the U.K. regarding time limits for filing civil claims for compensation for sexual abuse.

Until recently, I would have said that Canada, and Nova Scotia in particular, had the most liberal time limits for filing civil claims for historical sexual abuse. Based on this article I believe that the U.K. may now have taken the lead in protecting the rights of survivors of childhood sexual absue.

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The Roman Catholic Bishop of Vermont threatened to sue a catholic diocese in Indiana over sexual abuse by a priest, according to a report in The Burlington Free Press.

The story reports that Bishop Salvatore Matano threatened to sue Indiana's Fort Wayne-South Bend diocese for failing to disclose information about prior sexual misconduct by Rev. Edward Paquette. The Diocese of Vermont subsequently paid $965,000.00 to a man that Paquette sexually abused in Vermont.

According to church documents filed with the court, the diocese had evidence that Paquette had molested boys in Massachusetts and then Indiana before being hired by the Vermont diocese in 1972.

In response to the threat of litigation from the Bishop of Vermont, Bishop John N. D’Arcy, the Bishop of the Indiana diocese, replied bluntly:

“The diocese of Burlington was made aware of his (Paquette’s) history from this diocese, and from other sources as well.”

The exchange of correspondence between the Bishops is, to put it politely, ironic.

The catholic church's response, worldwide, to lawsuits involving allegations of sexual abuse has been to dogmatically deny any knowlege of priest's past sexual misconduct.

But when it comes to litigation within the church itself the response is: "We knew about it. We told you about it and you hired him anyway!"

Too bad the church doesn't extend this policy of full disclosure to it's parishoners and the victims of sexual abuse by it's priests.

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A state legislator wants to eliminate the statute of limitations for sexual abuse lawsuits.

Rep. Gwyn Green (D-Golden) is sponsoring the "Children's Protection Bill." Based on the proposed law, a victim of sexual abuse would be able to sue an organization or an agency if it knew about the abuse and failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the perpetrator from committing the abuse.

In the landmark ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada in M.K. v. M.H. the court ruled that the time limit in historical sexual abuse claims did not start to run until the victim was reasonably capable of discovering the wrongful nature of the abuser's acts and the nexus between those acts and the victim's injuries.

The ruling in M.K. v. M.H. has since been codified in the limitation statutes of all Canadian provinces and territories and is generally refered to as the "discoverability rule".

The proposed Colorado statute seems to go even further than the Canadian discoverability rule. There is no indication that when the victim discovered the effects of the abuse has any bearing on the time limit to bring a claim.

If this is the case, then the statute would be one of the most liberal victim protection laws in North America.

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The former premier of the Northwest Territories, Joe Handley, has been accused of covering up allegations of sexual abuse of Inuit students in isolated Arctic schools.

The Globe and Mail has reported that lawyer Geoffrey Budden represents 69 Inuit who say they were victims of convicted sex offender Ed Horne when they were between six and 17 years old. Mr. Horne was their teacher in the 1970s and 1980s.

Budden claims:

"Rather than the school reporting it to the police, the teacher being fired and investigated and charged, the practice seems to have been to allow the teacher to resign or perhaps transfer,"

Premier Handley has been linked to the abuse claims because Budden has filed a motion claiming there is evidence that the government, like the Catholic Church, had "policies or procedures" that treated child sexual abuse by teachers as an internal matter.

The allegations of systemic abuse in the NWT lawsuit are similar to the widespread physical, sexual and racial abuse that took place in Canada's Indian Residential Schools. The Residential Schools class action settlement is the largest class action settlement in Canada and, to date, the largest abuse claims settlement in the world. I posted details here and here and here.

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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin circulated legal advice to every bishop in Ireland to help the dioceses negotiate insurance policies to protect them from child sex abuse claims.

The Irish paper, Independent has reported:

The legal advice, obtained on behalf of Cardinal Connell's predecessor Archbishop Kevin McNamara, formed the basis for a dedicated clerical sex abuse insurance policy. Within two years, all dioceses in Ireland had insured themselves against abuse claims, despite later Church claims that they had no knowledge of the fact of, or extent of, errant priests.

Apparently the sexual abuse policies were subsequently cancelled by the insurance companies as a result of "serious legal issues":

...related to non-disclosure of the full extent and knowledge of clerical sex abuse

So the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland apparently covered up allegations of sexual abuse by priests. Raise your hand anyone who is surprised. Anyone? I didn't think so.

I just did a google search of the terms "church sexual abuse cover up" that resulted in 181, 000 hits.

In almost every single case I have been involved with representing victims abused by priests, I have uncovered evidence that the Church knew what the priest was doing and actively covered it up or failed to take steps to prevent the abuse from recurring.

The CBC has produced a documentary showing how the Catholic Church in Ontario covered up abuse by Canada's most notorious serial sex abuser, Charles Sylvestre. You can read more about it here.

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A fund to pay for sexual abuse counselling for male survivors of abuse by priests has been doubled.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of London has increased funding for it's Silence to Hope project from $30,000.00 to $60,000.00.

The London Free Press reported that:

The Roman Catholic diocese set up the program in response to several cases of abuse by priests, especially the abuse inflicted by a defrocked priest, the late Charles Sylvestre, who was convicted and jailed for abusing 47 women over a 30-year-old period across the region.

Sylvestre is one of Canada's most notorious sexual abusers. The Catholic Church knew about Sylvestre's abuse and covered it up for decades. I posted about the claims here.

The new program is designed specifically for male survivors of sexual abuse. The problem is one of gigantic proportions. The London Free Press reported:

It's estimated there could be more than 15,000 male victims in the London region alone.

Here is the contact information: Tom Wilken at Hope and Healing Associates, 519-676-7613 or toll free 1-877-676-7613, or by e-mail at silencetohope@hotmail.com.

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Ten current and former female prisoners at the Scott Women's Correctional Facility have been awarded $15.4 million dollars in compensation for rapes and sexual harrassment by prison guards.

The compensation awards ranged from $335,000.00 to $3.6 million.

In an unusual step, the jury asked to read a statement after the verdict:

"We would like to express our extreme regret and apologies..."

You can read more here and here.

This decision could be the tip of the iceberg. The Detroit News reported that there are 490 pending claims by other inmates.

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A Portland Oregon man has sued the Boy Scouts of America and its local Cascade Pacific Council for more than $3 million, alleging sexual abuse by two troop leaders in the mid-1970s.

The Plaintiff's lawyer, Kelly Clark was quoted in a story reported in The Oregonian as saying:

"We also intend to prove that the Boy Scouts were well aware, by at least the 1960s, that they had a serious, institution-wide infestation of child abuse, stretching across the country, involving hundreds of predators and thousands of children."

There have been sexual abuse lawsuits filed against the Boy Scouts here in Canada, see for example S.C. v. Boy Scouts of Canada . There have also been dozens (perhaps hundreds) of successful lawsuits across Canada where the perpetrator was affliated with the Boy Scouts and used this to prey on his victims.

However, I am not aware of any successful claims alleging systemic problems in the Boy Scout organization.

This suit in Oregon will be an interesting one to watch. If Clark is successful in proving a national cover up, we are likely to see a flood of lawsuits similar to those being filed against the Catholic Church and those suits are likey to also be filed here in Canada.

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Pedophiles have considerably less brain white matter than people not sexually attracted to children, according to a study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

The study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research indicated that sex offenders subjected to sensitive MRI scans had less white matter in the frontal lobes of the brain that govern response to sexual stimuli.

The authors of the report state:

The most straightforward explanation of the present result is that low white matter volumes increase the risk of developing pedophilia,...Regardless of whether white matter deficiencies produce pedophilia or a susceptibility to it, the present results suggest the need to pursue what causes the white matter deficiencies.

So how long before criminal defence lawyers start to defend pedophiles on the basis that they are not criminally responsible for their actions due to brain damge?

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The House of Lords decision extending time limits for filing sexual abuse claims that I posted about yesterday is likely to open the "floodgates" to hundreds of historical sexual abuse claims, according to an article today in the Evening Gazette.

The story reports that:

A landmark legal ruling has opened the floodgates to one of the biggest claims of alleged sexual abuse in history.

The Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough is set to be sued by 140 men over alleged physical and sexual abuse suffered while in care.

The House of Lords decision gives broad discretion to judges to allow historical claims for sexual abuse, even when time limits for filing the claims have passed.

The ruling appears to go even further than the historic decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in M.K. v. M.H. which ruled that historical sexual abuse claims, although subject to limitations legislation, did not accrue until the plaintiff was reasonably capable of discovering the wrongful nature of the defendant's acts and the nexus between those acts and the plaintiff's injuries.

The Court clarified that the "reasonable discoverability rule" means that in cases of historical sexual abuse, the limitations period should begin to run only when the plaintiff has a substantial awareness of the harm and its likely cause.

The House of Lords decision means that the courts in the U.K. have gone even further than the courts in Canada and the United States to protect the rights of victims of childhood sexual abuse.

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