BishopAccountability.org
	Two Witnesses Have Nearly Similar Stories of Abuse at the Hands of a Priest By Terri Saunders Standard Freeholder August 28, 2007 http://www.standard-freeholder.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=670743&catname=Local%20News&classif= Two different men who know very little of one another have remarkably similar stories about being abused by a city priest, the Cornwall Public Inquiry heard Monday. David Silmser told police in the early 1990s he'd been abused by Rev. Charles MacDonald in the sacristy of St. Columban's Church while the two were seated alone on a bench. Silmser said the priest had told him he was doing a good job as an altar boy before he began touching his private parts. Years later, while being interviewed by police officers about similar allegations, another man talked about having been abused by MacDonald in the same place and under the same sort of circumstances. MacDonald has vehemently denied all allegations of abuse leveled at him over the past 15 years, and in 2002 criminal charges against him were stayed when a judge determined it had taken too long to bring his matter to trial. Silmser, who testified at the inquiry in the early part of this year, has maintained his story is the truth. But the other man, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban, has told the inquiry he was never abused by MacDonald and made up the story to appease former city cop Perry Dunlop. "It's very weird," said the man Monday on being shown how similar the two stories are. "It's almost like Perry took that part of my statement and gave it to someone else." The man said he doesn't really know Silmser, having only heard his name on occasion and only in relation to the fact Silmser had received a $32,000 payment from the Alexandria-Cornwall Roman Catholic Diocese in the early 1990s. City police attorney John Callaghan pointed out the fact Silmser's statement would have been provided to investigators years before this witness ever mentioned the allegations to anyone. Initially, it appeared as if Callaghan was going to suggest Dunlop had written the man's statement using Silmser's claims as a bit of a template, but the man said that wasn't the case. "I said this myself," said the man, pointing out just a word or two which would have been inserted by Dunlop when the man couldn't think of the proper terminology to describe something. "I said that story at the time. "He (Dunlop) was typing as I was saying it." The man, whose testimony was completed Monday, has said he fabricated portions of the stories he's told investigators in past because he felt pressured by Dunlop to provide some evidence MacDonald had abused him. The man was a complainant in a 2000 trial following which city school teacher Marcel Lalonde was convicted of sexually assaulting a number of young boys. The man has also said he was sexually abused by Ron Leroux, another witness at the inquiry. Leroux has denied those allegations. On Monday, the man said he held no animosity towards Dunlop and says now he regrets ever having come forward about the abuse in the first place. "Perry Dunlop was a great guy who wanted to protect kids and I didn't want to hurt the guy; he's done a lot of good," the man said. "Sometimes I wish I would have never called anybody or said anything."
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