By Terri Saunders
Cornwall Standard Freeholder
November 21, 2007
http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=784272
Perry Dunlop has been found guilty of contempt of court for refusing to testify at the Cornwall Public Inquiry and has been ordered back to the stand in the new year.
 |
| Perry Dunlop and his wife Helen stand outside the Cornwall Public Inquiry back in October. The Dunlops will be seeing a lot more of the inquiry in the future. An Ontario court has ordered him to return to the inquiry to testify in January. |
A panel of three judges at the Ontario Divisional Court in Toronto took "just a few moments" to find Dunlop guilty of contempt, a commission lawyer who attended the hearing said Monday afternoon.
"This is what we were expecting," said Peter Engelmann, lead commission counsel. "I don't think it was a difficult decision for the court to make."
Dunlop, a former city cop who conducted his own investigations in the 1990s into historical child sexual abuse in Cornwall, has been ordered by the divisional court to return to the inquiry Jan. 14 to testify. A date for sentencing on the contempt conviction is expected to be set following that appearance.
Dunlop attended the inquiry on a number of occasions in September and October and repeatedly refused to answer questions from Engelmann about contact he had with victims, alleged victims and public institutions over a seven-year period. Dunlop has said he first became aware of allegations against a city priest in the fall of 1993 and attempted to uncover what he believed was both a ring of pedophiles working in concert to abuse children and protect one another from being charged by authorities.
Dunlop did not attend Monday's hearing, but wrote a letter to the court suggesting he has no faith in the Ontario justice system or the inquiry itself.
"I have read the factum of the applicant, Comm. Norman Glaude; it is despicable and pathetic at best in its half truths," Dunlop wrote. "I have no intention of testifying at the Cornwall Inquiry now or ever."
Engelmann said the judges of the divisional court decided to go ahead with the hearing despite the fact Dunlop did not make the trip from Duncan, B.C. to Toronto.
"They just decided to go ahead without him," said Engelmann. "I think it's unfortunate he didn't appear because doing so would at least have shown some respect for the process."
The factum, a lengthy document provided to the divisional court by commission staff in support of a conviction on the contempt charge, outlined the commission's position on the importance of Dunlop's in-person testimony, the repeated attempts to have him testify and the results of those attempts.
Engelmann said the factum also contained statements Dunlop made at the inquiry this fall which indicated he was simply not willing to answer questions.
"It was clear he refused to answer questions; it was clear those questions were relevant to the inquiry's mandate; and it was clear the commission had grounds to summon him to appear," said Engelmann. "He should have answered those questions and he didn't. And saying he didn't want to answer them was not a lawful excuse for not testifying."
In his letter to the court, Dunlop reiterated things he's said in the past few months about the work of the inquiry and the contact he's had with commission officials.
"I have been lied to, deceived, coerced, bullied and threatened by the Cornwall Inquiry and those who work for them," Dunlop wrote. "I was subpoenaed under duress and false pretense to attend the inquiry.
"I fought the summonses after the fact, but to no avail."
Engelmann said attorneys representing the commission at Monday's hearing asked the panel of judges to consider what happens Jan. 14 when determining the appropriate sentence on the contempt conviction.
"We asked for a measured response," said Engelmann. "We want him (Dunlop) to testify and we are willing to meet with him prior to that Jan. 14 appearance date in order to prepare him to testify efficiently and effectively."
In his letter, Dunlop said the Cornwall community would have been better served if the money spent on the inquiry and earlier police investigations had been put to a different use.
"Millions of the Ontario taxpayers dollars have been spent to lie, deny, cover-up and minimize the truth surrounding the atrocities of historical and present day child sexual abuse in the Cornwall region," Dunlop wrote, suggesting the goal of many prosecutions and investigations has been to discredit him rather than seek the truth of the allegations.
"If they had invested the money spent over the last 14 years in hunting down the perpetrators and their protectors instead of shooting the messenger, well, just imagine how children's lives would have been saved.
"I know I will never be treated fairly at the Cornwall Public Inquiry.
"There is (ample) proof of that. The (die was cast) many years ago. It continues to this very day."
Dunlop told commission counsel in September a 110-page statement he prepared in 2000 contains his "best memory" of the events in question and pleaded with them to accept it in lieu of his testimony. Suggesting the statement had already been provided to parties at the inquiry, commission staff refused to allow Dunlop to read the statement into the record.
"I have told the truth," Dunlop wrote in Monday's letter. "I will tell the truth and nothing will dissuade me from the truth."
Dunlop did not return calls made to his west coast home Monday.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.