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	'No Child Should Ever Be Afraid Every Minute' By Peggy Curran Montreal Gazette May 22, 2008 http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=051b9937-a6c9-48e5-92e2-2a878ea66664 He has suffered from depression and panic attacks for decades. His dealings with bosses have often been stormy, although he likes to think he has succeeded at some jobs, most recently teaching adults. He's unable to sustain a sexual relationship with a woman or a man. "I'm virtually a hermit," the 61-year-old Montreal man says, a pause on the end of the phone long enough for a drag on a cigarette. It took a question from his dying mother a few years back to unlock the source of his lifelong distress. "What happened to you at BCS?" Until then, he says, memory of those furtive fumblings at Bishop's College School in 1961, when he was 14 years old - the early morning summons to "wake the reverend," the order to undress, the hairbrush, the spankings, the threats of punishment to those who spoke out - had been locked in a secret pocket of his mind. "I never knew how this had impacted my life, why I didn't trust people, why I had all this rage and anxiety." The man, who spoke on condition that his name not be used, is one of 11 alumni of the prestigious private school in Lennoxville who have filed a multimillion-dollar class-action suit against BCS alleging sexual abuse by Rev. Harold Theodore Gibson Forster. Forster, who worked as a teacher, chaplain, choir director and house master at Bishop's College School between 1953 and 1962, died in a train crash in Britain in 1967. The case was filed in October 2006 on behalf of a Vancouver man. Identified in court documents only as A.B.T., the representative plaintiff said Forster had seized upon the vulnerability of his students, "which included their small stature, inexperience and young age." The lawsuit says Forster, an Anglican minister, "used his position of dominance ... to dispense favours, benefits, inducements and punishments," creating an environment where "sexual assault, physical or mental abuse" were commonplace. The BCS case was expected to go to court last month, but has been stalled in legal red tape. Bryan McPhadden, a Toronto-based lawyer who recently won a $5-million settlement for victims of abuse by teachers at Selwyn House dating to the 1970s, is also acting on behalf of plaintiffs in the BCS case. The lawsuit seeks $13 million from BCS for liability in hiring, employing and inadequately supervising Forster, as well as $13 million in damages for "breach of duty of care," $4 million in punitive and exemplary damages, and $2 million in aggravated damages. In a phone interview, McPhadden said the BCS hearing was delayed after A.B.T., the original main plaintiff, decided he didn't want the case to hinge on him. McPhadden said it will take several months to rebuild the case around a second representative plaintiff. Realistically, he said, it's unlikely the case will go to court before the end of the year. Founded as a boys' school in 1836, Bishop's College School is now a bilingual co-educational day and boarding school in the Eastern Townships, with 260 students from 25 countries. Headmaster Lewis Evans declined comment last week, but said BCS has hired Guy J. Pratte, a top litigator for Borden Ladner Gervais whose past clients have included JTI Macdonald, Pharmacie Jean Coutu and the CBC. "BCS's position has not changed," Pratte said in an email exchange. "It will defend itself vigorously as there is no basis for liability. In addition, any and all claims are prescribed (i.e., well past the three-year limitation period) and, in any event, totally inappropriate for a class action." In the months after McPhadden filed the lawsuit in 2006, other men began to tell their stories of sexual abuse during Forster's watch nearly half a century ago. "No child should ever be afraid every minute of their wakefulness nor their sleep," a victim who identified himself as BCS_Survivor said in a chat room posting on the Monsters and Critics website. "I only want to make others aware of the multiple states of horror we all lived through. I find this blog section very comforting. To not be trapped in this fear alone." Comments posted under pseudonyms such as by Hard Rain, Beaten by Harry and Another B.C.S. Survivor describe the school they attended half a century ago as "a charnel house of abuse" that would make cases at other private boys' school seem tame by comparison. "You are lucky in your case that it was only a beating," Another B.C.S. Survivor wrote to Beaten by Harry. "You did not have him feel your ass and up and down your legs in front and in back. I know a student who was hit so hard and often with a running shoe that he was made to bleed. He was beaten with his pants down but when he got back to the dorm you could see the blood coming through. The sad thing is that nobody gave a damn, including me, who was one of his best friends." But the alleged victims also touch on the challenges in trying to right wrongs that date back decades when many of the players are either dead or reluctant to dredge up the unhappy past. "We are in the twilight of our lives. How does one go back to the most important period of our youth with respect to character development and try to explain what happened to us?" asked Another B.C.S. Survivor. "Back then, you (and) I were human beings who deserved compassion and respect, yet we got 'raped' in more than one way. B.C.S. could have been a good school in turning us into citizens who would be able to face all the challenges of the world but for some of us it stole our identity. "When I left B.C.S. I had become a sort of machine. I did not trust people and I became very insensitive to their feelings. I was supposed to be tough ... the stiff upper lip and all that crap; I was supposed to be a leader. I was so determined not to get hurt the way I had been hurt back then again. I definitely succeeded here but the downside was awful. I discovered I was alone; there was no compassion; I could trust no one and I was incapable of loving and being loved and all this led to doing incredibly stupid things." "I have been a shell of a person," said BCS_Survivor. "The level of sadness that I have is only masking the bubbling rage that is escaping me. Like many others, I have not talked to anyone about the things that had happened all those years ago. Now I see doctors and with all the scratching at the surface the level of rage that sometimes escapes is somehow more scary than the sadness. "To be happy, sad, rageful, cry and laugh. All things that we must keep hidden to survive. Isn't it what we learnt? That our lives were to be filled with beatings, punishments, molestations, criticism, judgment and embarrassment. All for the price of our soul. Where is the protection in that? Where does this leave all (of) us for a lifetime?" For the man on the phone, memories buried for 47 years are now vivid - the image of the minister dropping his own robe and pajama bottoms and ordering him to undress and lean across his thighs; the pain of the hairbrush slapping his bare buttocks, followed by the rubbing as the minister massaged his wounds; a group meeting where boys were threatened if they reported what went on. He disagrees with those who downplay the events, saying it was "part of the culture" of British-style boarding schools at the time. "We were young impressionable kids. Making us undress goes way beyond what's normal. Come on, being beaten within an inch of your life - these things stay with you."
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