New child advocacy centre to open in new year

A dramatic rise in crimes against children is prompting Calgary police to bump up its child abuse unit.

The addition of seven investigators, nearly doubling the unit, is designed to help police deal with an increasing workload of disturbing cases of violence against youngsters.“It’s not just Calgary that’s seen this dramatic increase. It’s right across Canada and the U.S. It’s a dramatic, notable increase in offences against children,” said Calgary police Chief Rick Hanson.

In Calgary last year, there were 873 cases of children being beaten, sexually abused or killed.

That’s up from 713 in 2006.

Staff Sgt. Kelly Campbell heads the child abuse unit of 10 investigators, which is expanding to 17 to keep up.

“It is a concern that these cases are becoming more serious to children, they’re getting more and more aggressive with the injuries. That is in a sense troubling, we’re seeing more violence,” said Campbell.

“Our plan is to try and make Calgary aware that there is child abuse out there, it is our responsibility to take care of the children.”

The troubling numbers have spurred the creation of a new child advocacy centre geared toward merging agencies under one roof to serve victims and their families. It’s expected to open in the new year.

It will co-ordinate Crown prosecutors, welfare workers and police to better handle child abuse cases.

szickefoose@calgaryherald.com

Source: Calgary Herald

Kennedy, the former NHL player who was one of the sexual abuse victims of former hockey coach Graham James, told the U.S. Senate subcommittee on children and families it’s important to “empower the bystanders” – those who have suspicions that children are being sexually abused.“Senators, you need to give all adults working with youth and all parents the tools to recognize and respond to abuse when it first arises,” Kennedy said at Tuesday’s hearing, which was intended to examine child abuse laws in the U.S.

The reason those tools are needed is that, just as it is difficult for victims to report abuse, it can also be difficult for people who suspect abuse to act on their suspicions. Kennedy explained pedophiles are counting on the fact that it’s hard to believe trusted adults could be involved in abusing children. The more glowing the alleged abuser’s reputation, the more difficult it is to accept the notion of abuse.

“In my case, my abuser was International Hockey Man of the Year,” Kennedy told the U.S. senators. “In Canada, that gave him almost God-like status. Sound familiar? The kids – and often their parents, too – looked up to him as a hero. This was someone who could make their dreams come true and he used that trust to hurt them.”

On the same day Kennedy spoke to the Senate subcommittee, the accused in the child molestation case that has rocked Penn State University made a court appearance, where he waived a preliminary hearing. Jerry Sandusky was a respected assistant coach with one of America’s most celebrated college football programs.

The scandal has so far cost the jobs of legendary coach Joe Paterno as well as the school’s president, and led to charges against two administrators who are accused of lying to a grand jury and failing to report the suspected abuse.

Meanwhile, Syracuse University’s basketball program is dealing with a similar scandal after two former ball boys accused a former assistant basketball coach of molesting them.

“In every case of child abuse – certainly in my own – there are people who had a ‘gut feeling’ that something was wrong but didn’t do anything about it,” Kennedy went on to say.

“Their attitude was: ‘I don’t want to get involved,’ ‘it’s not my problem,’ ‘he couldn’t possibly be doing that’ or ‘the authorities will take care of it.’ And that’s what pedophiles and predators are counting on. They are counting on the public’s ignorance or – worse yet – their indifference.”

If progress is to be made in tackling the problem of child sex abuse, the obstacles of fear and indifference must be removed. The abuse of children is a community issue and must be dealt with as a community. People who suspect abuse, as well as victims of abuse, must feel they will have support if they come forward with allegations.

“These issues carry fear,” Kennedy told the U.S. senators. “So if we can eliminate that fear and give people confidence to act on their gut feelings, you’re going to get a lot more of these parents and these coaches and these leaders and these teachers reporting and listening to our kids.”

That’s the way to combat this problem. Sheldon Kennedy knows what he’s talking about. Hopefully, U.S. legislators – as well as those in Canada – will listen to him.

Source: Lethbridge Herald

The civil suit by Patrick McMahon, 43, against pedophile Rev. William Hodgson Marshall, also names the Basilian Fathers of Toronto and Catholic Bishop Ronald Fabbro. It alleges neither did anything to prevent Marshall from abusing children.The suit by Jerry Boyle, 71, also names the Basilian Fathers and Fabbro, as well as the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of London.

Marshall, now 89, was sentenced June 9 in a Windsor court to two years in prison for molesting children. He pleaded guilty to 17 counts of indecent assault between 1952 and 1985 in Windsor, Sudbury and Toronto where the Basilian taught.

“I am here today for justice,” Boyle told a news conference, where he described how Marshall started touching him in a shower after basketball practice when he was 14 and how it escalated over the next two years. “I have had my life changed by a protected villain that should have been removed from society before I was ever exposed to his evil desires. They relocated him to Windsor after Marshall assaulted students at St. Mike’s in Toronto.”

Boyle said he still has nightmares about the incidents. He said the abuse enters his thoughts every day, and that he went through two divorces because he has problems with intimacy.

The father of two and grandfather of four who now works as a realtor in Cambridge, Ont., said he holds the church and school board equally responsible — he was a student at Assumption High School where Marshall began preying on him.

“I looked for help and it was denied,” Boyle said, noting that he confided in another priest who only blamed the abuse on the youngster. “There were at least four other priests that witnessed his assaults on me and would not help. They saw him sexually assaulting me in the shower after basketball practices.”

Boyle said priests saw the assaults take place in classrooms and in Marshall’s private room, but nobody stepped in to stop it.

Speaking at the same news conference, McMahon told a similar tale of abuse and of a life spent trying to escape the nightmares.

“This is a horror story, as this man, Father Hod Marshall, and others like him, walked amongst us, revered as men of sacrifice, wisdom, authority and power,” McMahon said. “All the while, stalking the most innocent children they could find, moving from city to city, provided with an inexhaustible supply of new victims while leaving accusations, suspicions and broken lives concealed behind them.”

McMahon did not suffer abuse at the hands of Marshall because of school or his church, however, but because he was a longtime family friend.

McMahon said the abuse started when he was 13 on a family ski trip.

“My family took a ski vacation in Sault Ste. Marie and stayed in the Basilian’s residence at St. Mary’s College with him,” said McMahon, who is now married, with two daughters under the age of 10 and who was laid off from his financial job last week. “He gave me the special suite on the first floor, leaving the rest of my family upstairs and unaware. He would get in my bed, he would get in my clothes, he would do things I can’t stand up here and tell you about. He would visit us in Windsor and stay in our home. He would come to my bed again at night and take my clothes off. I would lie there frozen like a statue doing nothing other than what he told me to.”

Robert Talach, the lawyer representing Boyle and McMahon, said besides financial compensation they also want the Basilians to officially fire Marshall.

Rev. Timothy Scott, Toronto-based spokesman for the Basilian Fathers, said though his order may request that Marshall be defrocked, only the Vatican has the power to do so. Either way, Scott said that Marshall will not perform any priestly duties for the rest of his life.

“On the day of Hod Marshall’s conviction, I spoke to the media — and the Basilian Fathers issued a statement — apologizing on behalf of the order for these terrible deeds, saying this never should have happened and pledging our support for the victims on their path toward healing,” Scott said. “That still holds true today. We’re going to do whatever we can to assist these people who have suffered immensely at his hands.”

Source: The Vancouver Sun

It’s worse than that. It’s a dark moment for everyone, though we are learning that this sort of shadow finds too many corners in locker rooms.

Once again, former junior coach James stood in front of a judge on Wednesday and was convicted of sex crimes. The court sat in Winnipeg. James blandly delivered his lines via video link from Montreal, where he is free on bail.He will remain free until his Feb. 22 sentencing.

James has already served 3½ years in prison for assaults on several of his other charges, including former NHLer Sheldon Kennedy.

James ran once before, but there’s nowhere for him to hide now. He has become the wearisome and malignant Canadian face of child abuse.

As part of a plea, James admitted guilt in the sexual abuse of two more of his young players, former Calgary Flames star Theoren Fleury and a second man whose name remains under a publication ban.

The ugly details were read out in an agreed statement of facts. How James began his abuse of Fleury by fondling him while he slept. How it escalated to forced oral sex. How, perhaps most damaging of all, he coerced Fleury’s silence by threatening to extinguish his NHL hopes if he told anyone.

The modus operandi was the same in both cases.

There is something twisted and mythic about Graham James. Like a storybook monster, he fed on the dreams of children. That was the word Fleury used to describe him — “monster.”

On TV, this would have been a moment of exhalation. The villain is bound by law and knows to a certainty that his punishment is coming. The victims get to move on, knowing that their persecutor will pay and, more importantly, that their stories have been vindicated.

Sadly, life isn’t like that. Everybody involved lost and will continue losing forever. Some crimes spiral out eternally. Vindication is a paltry thing measured against a lifetime of remembering.

Fleury didn’t sound relieved, or whatever word it is that we now reflexively attach to those who’ve suffered and survived.

“When he gets out of prison, he will do it again, and again, and again,” Fleury said from Calgary. “I believe what people show me. He showed me he was and is a rapist.”

Referring to James’ previous conviction and his infamous pardon, Fleury dismissed the entire notion of justice in this particular.

“What the legal system has shown me is that it’s flawed, very, very seriously, and that we have to change.”

Another of the children James preyed on, Greg Gilhooly, had even less to hang on to. The charges James faced in his case were stayed Wednesday.

Gilhooly has managed to find his footing in the world. He works as a corporate lawyer. He used that training to detach himself from the human element here — that human element being himself — and view things at a professional remove.

“The Crown gets a guilty plea,” Gilhooly said approvingly. “The Crown gets agreement to the statement of fact without opposition. And the Crown didn’t have to cut a deal on sentence.”

He appended that thought with a closing look inward: “Everybody gets what they want but me.”

There is no ending here, happy or otherwise.

As in the case of Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky — jailed on Wednesday — or Syracuse coach Bernie Fine — who skipped on several charges because of statute of limitations problems — there is only human wreckage.

All that’s left behind is a corrosive suspicion of the many good-hearted people who want to teach kids how to skate or tackle or dribble.

There is no lesson to be learned or guarantee of future vigilance.

All there is by way of apology for several lives destroyed is punishment. It’s a completely necessary and ultimately unsatisfying resolution.

Graham James took something wonderful — mentorship, sport, childish hopes — and twisted them into something horrible. No jail sentence can scrub off that taint.

Source: The Star

An elementary school janitor and pedophile should be sentenced to 12 months in jail, a prosecutor argued Wednesday.

Michel Mallette told a probation officer he was “bored” stimulating himself on his webcam and decided to “up the ante” by asking an undercover detective he believed was a child if she’d reciprocate.Mallette, a custodian at Our Lady of Peace school in Bells Corners, had exposed himself on four times between June 2008 and March 2009 before making the request.

During one of the chats, Mallette claimed he was in his early 20s and asked about the “girl’s” breasts before offering to bring his dog over to her house to perform sexual favours.

A forensic psychiatrist later determined Mallette to be a pedophile. Mallette described himself as a sex addict.

His “addiction” included an interest in pictures of bestiality and a one-time penchant for wearing women’s underwear, according to the doctor’s report. He also fantasized about inflicting physical and psychological harm on others, had a sexual interest in children between 11 and 13 and enjoyed exposing himself to strangers.

Mallette, 54, pleaded guilty in May to using a computer to facilitate an invitation to sexual touching.

“This is a man with a very deepseated sexual dysfunction,” Crown prosecutor Kevin Phillips told Ontario Court Justice Heather Perkins-McVey. “It spans the spectrum from bestiality to incest to sadism.”

Mallette’s lawyer, Jason Gilbert, argued that his client had recognized his problems and sought treatment. Mallette should be sentenced to a 15-to-18-month conditional sentence that would allow him to remain in the community and continue getting help, including from Sexaholics Anonymous, Gilbert said.

“Being a pedophile isn’t a crime. It is engaging in that activity that becomes criminal,” Gilbert said.

Mallette no longer works at the school, Gilbert said. He is now a cleaner at a museum.

Ottawa police had closed an investigation into Mallette in January 2010 without laying charges, but the case was reopened in September 2010 after the principal at Our Lady of Peace inquired about the status of the case. Detectives visited Mallette’s house the next day.

He admitted a man in a screen grab from one of the webcam sessions was him. Mallette also acknowledged that his online alias – “méchantgarçon1957″ which is translated as “badboy1957″ – was the same as the one used during online chats with a detective.

While Mallette had no prior criminal record, Phillips said he had been disciplined by the Ottawa Catholic School Board. In 2003, Mallette asked to be transferred to a high school after writing his email address on a 12-year-old girl’s arm. He also asked the girl for her email address, but she declined.

Mallette was moved to Lester B. Pearson high school, where he asked to have no Internet access. The request was denied by the school board because he’d need it to communicate with board staff, court heard. At some later point he was transferred to Our Lady of Peace.

Source: Ottawa Citizen

The civil suits pertain to Ralph Rowe, a former Anglican priest, pilot and Scoutmaster. He’s one of Canada’s most prolific pedophiles, but not well known outside of the northern communities where he used his positions of authority to prey on boys.

Investigators suspect Rowe molested more than a 100 victims over the years, while mental health authorities in the north say the tally could be as high as 500.The two settlement agreements contain confidentiality clauses that prevent the plaintiffs from publicly discussing the settlement amount.

A CBC investigation uncovered 13 civil cases against Scouts Canada across the country, including the two related to Rowe, where out-of-court settlements involving confidentiality clauses were signed. In at least one case, the victim is forbidden from discussing any details about the abuse.

The two lawsuits related to Rowe, filed by 39 plaintiffs in total, are among the largest.

Rowe joined the Scouts in the ‘50s and spent decades with the movement.

Rowe has been convicted of more than 50 charges of child sex abuse that happened during the 1970s and ‘80s, when he was an Anglican priest flying into First Nations to conduct church services, organize youth groups and lead Boy Scout outings.

The Rowe-related lawsuit settlements don’t forbid victims from speaking about the abuse they suffered, only the amount of money they received.

Victims feel silenced
Rob Talach, a London, Ont.,-based lawyer who specializes in child sex-abuse cases, says confidentiality agreements protect the institution and the perpetrator.

“It does nothing for victims in general and really harms society in the long run,” he says.

Talach says victims feel forced to sign the confidentiality agreements at the end of a difficult road through the court system.

Rowe has been convicted of more than 50 charges of child sex abuse that happened during the 1970s and ‘80s, when he was an Anglican priest flying into First Nations to conduct church services, organize youth groups and lead Boy Scout outings.

Rowe joined the Scouts in the ‘50s and spent decades with the movement.

But CBC’s Jody Porter in Thunder Bay says that victims she spoke to largely interpreted the agreements to mean that they can’t talk about anything relating to the case, including the abuse.

About 20 men plan to meet this week in Thunder Bay to prepare for new set of criminal allegations against Rowe. They, too, have been told not to discuss their case in public, in case their words could be used against them in court.

Porter said some victims feel the imposed silence continues to send the message that there’s something to be ashamed about and also makes it more difficult to heal.

Pain haunts community
Ralph Winter, who was allegedly abused by Rowe as a teenager in the early ‘80s, is one of the few who can speak freely about his allegations because he’s never gone to civil or criminal court.

But even so, Winter says speaking out is hard. Winter said it felt physically painful when he first told a gathering in Kenora, Ont., five years ago about the abuse.

“It was hard talking about it before but I knew I had to keep talking about it and keep bringing up what happened to me and how it affected my life,” said Winter.

Winter works as an alcohol and drug abuse counselor in northern Ontario’s Wunnumin Lake First Nation, one of the communities where Rowe molested many boys.

Rowe started several scouting groups in the Wunnumin Lake community. He abused boys on scout camping trips, church outings, at his cabin and even at an out-of-province Scout jamboree.

In northern Manitoba’s Split Lake community, where Rowe also molested many boys, no victims were willing to speak about the abuse.

But Ernest Spence, who lives there but was not a victim, says the pain of the abuse continues to haunt the community.

“This really hurt a lot of people,” he says. “People started sniffing to forget the past. It changed the personality of most of my friends.”

“He was a priest and I trusted him and he was a likeable person,” said Spence, who was nine years old when Rowe started a scout troop in Split Lake. “He was a pilot too. He used to give us rides and all that, show us slides at his house.”

But soon Spence says he witnessed questionable goings-on, such as “taking off his clothes and telling us it was natural [and] showers. He wanted to have showers all the time.”

Convicted in 1980s
In 1988, Rowe was convicted of 10 counts of sexual abuse and buggery relating to his time in Split Lake. It was just one of a set of criminal charges, totaling over 50, that were laid against Rowe over the years.

In 1994, Rowe pleaded guilty to 26 sex-related charges against more than a dozen boys in Ontario. In 2007 and 2009, he was found guilty of similar charges.

Among the allegations in the lawsuits against the Boy Scouts of Canada is that the organization failed to make appropriate inquiries that would have revealed earlier allegations of sexual misconduct. Boy Scouts denied all the allegations made in the statement of claim.

Though victims named in the civil lawsuits wouldn’t speak, the court documents reveal that many of them say they’ve been plagued by drug and alcohol dependencies, failed marriages and suicide attempts. Some have even struggled with sexually deviant behaviour themselves.

Source: CBC

The controversial website set up by the Department of Homeland Security was for the bogus firm Precious Treasure Holiday Co., which promised to arrange illegal encounters in Ontario for pedophiles.

The 19-month-long undercover operation yielded more than 140,000 hits and led to four arrests and convictions, but it has come under criticism on this side of the border because of how Ontario was depicted.

Brian Moskowitz, the U.S. special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations for Michigan and Ohio, defends the portrayal, saying it was created to strengthen the sting scenario.

Canada used for ‘mystique’

“Canada wasn’t picked because it’s perceived to be less risky, or this would be permitted in Canada,” he said. “It was just to add to the mystique of the scenario.”

Moskowitz noted that the Precious Treasure website used symbols and coded language known in child-sex circles to draw in predators. The aim was to nab pedophiles seeking arranged trips to Canada from Cleveland, Ohio, for the purpose of molesting children.

To avoid the possibility of entrapment and to prevent visitors from stumbling on explicit photos or offers to provide children, a user could only access such content after repeated emails to the undercover agents, Moskowitz explained.

“No one could stumble into this and accidentally get ensnared,” Moskowitz said. “You had to proactively ask, in accordance with our laws.”

Windsor removed from website

Windsor police were among those in Canada who were alerted to the ruse so they wouldn’t waste resources chasing a phantom website.

Even so, Jerome Brannagan, deputy chief of operations with the Windsor police, said he was uncomfortable enough with the website to request that U.S. agents remove references to Windsor. Other Canadian references remained.

“We understand the basis for why they chose to do it that way,” Brannagan said. “However, that was some concern of ours because we’re certainly not trying to attempt to suggest Canada is the place to come to for that type of criminal behaviour.”

The fake website was outed by The Smoking Gun as a government sting, but investigators had already gathered enough evidence to convict four men.

One has already been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for attempting to travel to engage in illicit sexual conduct with an eight-year-old girl and for the attempted receipt and distribution of child pornography.

Three other men will be sentenced later this month.

Source: CBC News

A Vancouver man at the centre of a residential school abuse case in Saskatchewan has a history of abusing boys elsewhere in Canada.

Paul Leroux, 70, was charged this week by the RCMP with 13 counts of indecent assault, involving boys attending the Beauval Indian Residential School in the 1960s. He was a dormitory supervisor at the school.

According to court documents from the Northwest Territories Department of Justice website, it’s not the first time Leroux has been accused of a similar crime.

He was convicted in 1998 of molesting boys at the Grollier Hall residential school in Inuvik. Those charges, involving 14 male victims, go back to the 1960s and 1970s, when Leroux was working as a school supervisor.

He pleaded guilty to nine counts of gross indecency. He was also found guilty of indecent assault, attempted buggery and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Prior to those convictions, Leroux worked as a regional complaints investigator for the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The latest abuse charges brought against Leroux were the result of a three-year investigation by Mounties that started in 2008.

The victims in the case were between the ages of three and 18, RCMP said.

Leroux, who lives in Vancouver, has been ordered to appear in court on Oct.19 in Beauval.

Beauval is approximately 310 kilometres northwest of Prince Albert.

Source: CJME

In a written statement, Airdrie Alliance Church board spokesman Craig Fisher confirmed that Cooke, a 77-year-old convicted pedophile, is no longer volunteering at the church in any capacity, and has never volunteered in any of the church’s children or youth programs.

“Being part of the community of Airdrie, we are here to serve and help people in our city,” the statement reads. “We strive to create an environment that is both welcoming and yet, safe for all. It has just been brought to our attention that an individual with an undisclosed criminal record had been volunteering in our community food program.

This person had served only once and is no longer volunteering in any capacity. The individual has never served in any of our children or youth programs.”

The church’s statement continued that any staff and volunteers at the church who work directly with children, youth and vulnerable persons, are required to complete an application process based on “Plan to Protect” – a program used by non-profits, sports organizations and school associations. The program follows a screening process that includes criminal record and personal reference checks.

In addition, all screened volunteers working with children and youth are required to be in the presence of at least one other screened volunteer.

“The safety and security of all children and youth are of the highest importance to us,” the statement reads.

Source: Airdrie Echo

Prosecutor Rachelle Pitre argued at the Montreal courthouse Wednesday that an eight-year prison sentence is appropriate in Gabriel Cantin’s case, despite his age, because he still tries to minimize the impact of his crimes and refuses to address his apparent obsession with child pornography.

Montreal police Det.-Sgt. Brigitte Guérard testified investigators found evidence Cantin collected child pornography off the Internet since 1997. An analysis of 23 computer hard drives seized at his home turned up more than 46,000 photos and videos of child pornography. Guérard said eight other hard drives have yet to be verified.

On March 16, Cantin pleaded guilty to four counts related to a collection of child pornography described by Montreal police as one of the largest they’ve uncovered.

He also pleaded guilty to sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching.

Cantin testified Wednesday and asked Quebec Court Judge Céline Lamontagne to consider his age before making a decision.

“They say I’m going to reoffend,” Cantin said, referring to a presentencing report prepared for the hearing. “But at 72, do you think I’m going to reoffend so I can die in prison?”

He cried at one point and said his family now “treats me like garbage.”

Among the computer files seized at his Anjou home in November is a video showing him abusing the 3-year-old girl while changing her diaper.

In baffling testimony, Cantin tried to argue that he intended to videotape the diaper change – as if it was a normal thing to do – but did not plan to molest the child.

“It was done on an impulse and I simply forgot to erase the video,” Cantin said.

A publication ban prohibits the release of information that could identify the victim.

Cantin attempted to shrug off his actions, which included hiding a video camera in his bathroom and recording another young girl as she removed her clothes.

Arguing for leniency, Cantin said he believes he caused minimal emotional damage to his victims because children who are 3 or under don’t recall much of what happens to them as they get older, according to experts he has heard.

While he was making this point, the father of the victim stormed out of the courtroom.

Cantin said his life has been threatened at the Rivière des Prairies Detention Centre, and he paid other inmates for protection.

As he testified, a courtroom guard stood behind him.

Defence lawyer Audrey Amzallag suggested Cantin be sentenced to two years for the sexual abuse charges and another two, to be served consecutively, for the child pornography.

She noted the presentencing report assessed Cantin as a low risk to commit a sexual offence, but a high risk of reoffending when it comes to child pornography.

Lamontagne is to render her sentence on Oct. 28.

Source: The Gazette