Category: School for the Deaf

What is the Burden of Proof in Sexual Abuse Claims? “How do I prove my claim?”

by John McKiggan

School for the Deaf Students make sexual abuse claims

Recently former residents of the Nova Scotia School for the Deaf have come forward with allegations about childhood sexual abuse. I have been representing survivors of childhood sexual abuse for almost 25 years. In most cases the allegations that give rise to the claims are decades old. So the most common question that I get asked about by survivors is: “How do I prove that I was abused?”

What is “The Burden of Proof”?

Sexual Abuse Claims at Nova Scotia School for the Deaf

by John McKiggan

Former residents of the Interprovincial School for the Education of the Deaf, more commonly called the Nova Scotia School for the Deaf have come forward with allegations that they were physically and sexually abused while they were students of the school.

The school was originally in Halifax and children from all the Atlantic provinces were sent to the school for education. In 1960 the governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick assumed joint responsibility for operation of the school and moved it to Amherst Nova Scotia where is was renamed the Interprovincial School for the Education of the Deaf.

While these allegations have not yet been proven in court they follow a string of other institutional abuse claims from various Residential Schools across the country where children were forced to lived in isolation, separated from their parents. Many of these children subjected to physical, sexual and psychological abuse.

“Explosive” Documentary About Sexual Abuse at School for Deaf

by John McKiggan

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) kicks off in just a few weeks’ time. One of the films premiering at TIFF is Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, a documentary by an Oscar-winning Director Alex Gibney.

The film chronicles the sad and tragic story of a pedophile, Father Lawrence Murphy, who sexually abused as many as 200 deaf children over a period of three decades at St. John’s School for the Deaf in Wisconsin.

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