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	Legal Arguments Delay Verdict in Church Sex Case London Free Press [Canada] May 17, 2007 http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/CityandRegion/2007/05/17/4187298-sun.html Kenora — Final submissions in the sexual abuse trial of former Anglican minister Ralph Rowe will continue into a third day today, and the judge said yesterday no verdict will be delivered this week. Rowe, 67, of Surrey, B.C., is facing 12 counts of sexual abuse involving five boys in the 1970s and '80s in remote First Nations communities in northern Ontario, where he served as an Anglican minister and boy scout master. The scheduled two-week, judge-only trial in the Superior Court of Justice began May 7 and was to finish by May 18. But Justice Erwin Stach said at the end of yesterday's session he had anticipated delivering a verdict by week's end, but now will not be able to do so because of lengthy closing submissions by Rowe's lawyer, Robert Sinding. Sinding, who began his submissions Tuesday afternoon, is expected to conclude his arguments today. "I certainly didn't anticipate two-plus days of submissions," Stach said. The judge said he would also allow Crown attorney Peter Keen, who delivered about two hours of final submissions Tuesday morning, an opportunity to make further submissions on new issues brought about in Sinding's closing arguments. Keen told the court he anticipated these submissions would take only 15 minutes to complete. In Sinding's submissions yesterday, he continued to look at the issue of consent in Rowe's alleged sexual abuse of the five complainants. He suggested the law at the time of the alleged offences may raise a reasonable doubt for the judge as to whether there was consent by some of the complainants. Sinding maintained the Crown failed to establish from the five complainants that they did not consent to the sexual acts with Rowe. In testimony delivered last week, the five men, now in their 30s and 40s, detailed years of sexual abuse and sexual assaults by Rowe while they were between the ages of six and 16. The alleged incidents ranged from fondling to fellatio and rape. The men said Rowe organized activities and regularly had several boys sleep over at his Anglican mission house in the communities where many of the assaults took place. Sinding also attacked the credibility and reliability of the witnesses and their testimony. He questioned why many of the complainants continued to go back to Rowe's mission house for years after the alleged abuse began.
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