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	Farnsworth Reaching out to Ex-Students 'Whatever Happened on My By Michael Jiggins Brockville Recorder and Times September 8, 2007 http://newsfeed.recorder.ca/cgi-bin/LiveIQue.acgi$rec=23626 The priest who ran Grenville Christian College at the time some former students have claimed they were subject to physical and psychological abuse is reaching out to those who are "hurt." At the same time, Reverend Charles Farnsworth insisted the portrait of the now-closed private Christian boarding school that's being painted in newspaper articles and on an Internet message board isn't accurate. "I'm available ... there's nothing I'd rather do than give comfort to those people who are hurt," Farnsworth, a Brockville resident, said in an interview this week. "We've shed tears over it," he said of the abuse allegations. "Some of the things that have been (posted) ... it's pathetic. If it happened just like they said it did, we were awful people. But I'm convinced, and I'm honest before God, the way things are put there are not the way I saw them. And other students have said, 'I never saw that.'" Farnsworth, who is now in his 70s, and his wife, Betty, ran the school for some two decades until his retirement in 1997. Several times during the interview with The Recorder and Times, Farnsworth stated he was not speaking out in order to defend himself against the allegations. "It's just hard for me to take and I hurt like crazy when people that we thought we loved and cared for and loved and cared for us are standing and saying these things about us," he said. "But I don't know how to get out of it. I'm an adult and I have to take it. Whatever happened on my watch, I just have to take responsibility." Nor, he added, was he claiming those former students who are now speaking out are lying. "The people who are on this Internet, whose words I've read, although I may not agree with what they say, I know they feel and they hurt deeply over something," said Farnsworth. "And I know I was involved. Whether I caused it, I don't know that - I don't know their condition before they got to us." Asked directly if he felt he had anything to apologize for, Farnsworth responded, "No, I don't. Not as far as intention is concerned. There may be things that we did that I would do differently now." He would not give examples of what things he would change. While Farnsworth may feel he has nothing for which to apologize, former staff member Joan Childs said in the Globe and Mail newspaper series that she's sorry for the treatment GCC students suffered at the hands of staff. Reached at her home in Brockville, Childs would not speak to this newspaper. "I have already committed to the Globe and Mail that I wouldn't talk to anybody else until they are finished with this, whatever they are doing," said Childs. Farnsworth has seen Childs' apology. "If she feels she should do that, I don't have any problem with her doing that," said Farnsworth, who added he was unaware of any incident for which Childs should say she's sorry. "Nothing comes to my mind. We were extremely close for the longest time. ... We did normal private school discipline," he recalled. Those incidents for which Childs has suddenly said sorry were the subject of a Recorder and Times investigation in 1989, although the article that resulted from reporter Mike Moralis's work was never published. Former R&T publisher Hunter Grant, whose daughter Meredith tells her story of being mistreated at GCC in today's paper, said he regrets not going to press with the story then. He said Moralis had obtained details of what's now coming out, complete with named parents and students as sources. "Then, all of a sudden I don't know why, I don't know how it happened, but every single one of them called and let us know they didn't want to be quoted. They were afraid of repercussions there," said Grant. "So, when all of the collaboration disappeared, so did the story - at least that was the sense of our libel lawyers." Grant said the paper never made another attempt to get the story into print, but noted, "We got the sense as time went by that the school knew we knew and may have altered their behaviour." As for his reaction to the current media attention, Grant said it's time those responsible are held accountable. "I'm not sure what form that takes, I just look at it and say there's got to be some way that these people have to pay for the damage they've done," he said. Meanwhile, in the firestorm of allegations surrounding the school and himself, Farnsworth said what saddens him is it's tarnishing the image of a school whose graduates went on to accomplish great things in business, the arts and government. "We have physicians, we have lawyers, government people, people with their own businesses, retired millionaires from several lands. ... There's been a real, positive influence - far more than the negatives that we've heard this last week from the Globe and Mail," said Farnsworth. While he said no former student has called to confront him about the abuse allegations, several have phoned to thank the school for the impact on their lives.
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