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	Former Police Board Prez Criticized for Approving Release By Trevor Pritchard Standard Freeholder April 24, 2008 http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1000900 The former president of the city's police board was assailed at the Cornwall Public Inquiry yesterday for approving a press release omitting key parts of a report critical of the David Silmser investigation. Leo Courville signed off on a February 1994 release highlighting the "excellent police work" an Ottawa investigator observed as he reviewed the force's investigation of Silmser's sexual abuse allegations against a Catholic priest and a probation officer. "The members of the investigative team . . . are satisfied that there was no attempt by any member of the Cornwall Police Service to 'cover-up' the situation," read the second paragraph of the two-page release. It continued: "Although the investigative team saw substantial evidence of excellent police work being done by accomplished police officers, there was a noticeable lack of senior management direction and systemic support." Silmser came to the police in December 1992 and alleged he was sexually abused as a boy by Rev. Charles MacDonald and probation officer Ken Seguin. The Alexandria-Cornwall Roman Catholic Diocese paid Silmser $32,000 not to press charges against MacDonald, and in September 1993 - after Silmser told police he was no longer willing to testify - the investigation was halted. Former cop Perry Dunlop turned Silmser's file over to the Children's Aid Society, and it later made its way into the media. While MacDonald was charged in 1996 by the OPP, those charges were stayed after a judge declared the matter had taken too long to come to trial. Seguin committed suicide in November 1993 and was never charged. In January 1994, Ottawa police officer Brian Skinner was asked by the acting chief at the time, Carl Johnston, to take a closer look at the Silmser investigation. After eight days in Cornwall, Skinner issued a report that detailed serious flaws - including potential witnesses who were never interviewed and a lead investigator who was too junior - and called the investigation "inept and ineffective." At the bottom of the report's final page, Skinner wrote that he did see "abundant evidence" of skilled police work in Cornwall and said his report was not an indictment of the entire force. The words "inept and ineffective" were nowhere to be found in the police board's press release - an omission that commission counsel Karen Jones seized upon Thursday. Jones suggested to Courville that he knew reporters would latch onto the eye-catching phrase and intentionally left it out. "You did not want the media to be aware of the true conclusion of the Skinner report - that the (investigation) was inept and ineffective," she said. Comm. Normand Glaude added that some people might compare Skinner's report with the positively worded press release and be "amazed" that they were referring to the same investigation. He asked if Courville ever considered issuing another release to clear the air, given that some people in the community - along with former Ottawa-area MPP Garry Guzzo - later took the resulting news reports as evidence of a possible police cover-up. "It was your press release, sir," said Glaude. "If there were problems emanating from that press release, would it not be your responsibility to set the record straight?" In his defence, Courville, who served as board president from 1993 to 1996, said it was always his intention to be "open and transparent." While the release didn't include every criticism Skinner raised, Courville said he felt it captured the spirit of what went wrong with the investigation. He also testified he didn't write the press release himself. "Short of producing the Skinner report in its entirety - which may have been an option - I think it (the release) does address some of the problem areas, in terms of (going) forward," he told Glaude. Anyone who thought police were involved in a conspiracy, Courville added, could have "disabused" themselves by tracking down a copy of Skinner's report - Guzzo included. "He chose to go off on his own tangent," said Courville. "I regret that he did that. It was a great disservice for this community." Guzzo, a former judge, was a vocal proponent of launching an inquiry into how police investigated historical sexual abuse allegations in the Cornwall area. He once threatened to reveal the names of alleged abusers on the floor of the provincial legislature. The inquiry is scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. today.
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