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	Insufficient Evidence to Charge Retired Priest, Former Teacher By Trevor Pritchard Standard-Freeholder May 22, 2008 http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1037591 City police couldn't uncover enough evidence to charge a retired priest and a former separate school teacher with sexual abuse, the Cornwall Public Inquiry heard yesterday. Det. Sgt. Jeff Carroll, who spent his third day on the witness stand, conducted two separate investigations into allegations brought forward earlier this decade by Marc Latour and Albert Lalonde. Latour first went to police in 2000, alleging he had been sexually and physically abused in the late 1960s by Gilf Greggain, his Grade 3 teacher at St. Peter's Elementary School. Lalonde had allegedly been abused by Rev. Charles MacDonald, a Roman Catholic priest at St. Columban's Church, on at least three occasions when he was a young boy. Greggain was never charged with any crime stemming from Latour's allegations. The OPP charged MacDonald in 1996 with sex-related offences involving a number of complainants, but those were stayed six years later after a judge found they'd taken too long to come to trial. Carroll, a 22-year veteran of the Cornwall Police Service, was taken step-by-step through his investigations Wednesday. He testified he tried to corroborate Latour's story by speaking to a janitor Latour knew and to Latour's sister, but he found problems with both of their statements. In September 2002, Carroll asked Greggain to come to the station for an interview. There, he confronted the retired teacher with Latour's allegations. "He (Greggain) appeared to be very concerned," Carroll told commission counsel Pierre Dumais. "He was low-key. He was composed. He recognized this as an allegation (that) he was denying." A transcript of the interview showed Greggain accepting that he "probably would have" physically disciplined Latour if "something could come from it," but denied ever sexually abusing him. In his subsequent report, Carroll called Greggain's interview "interesting" and said he showed "little shock or emotion over how serious the allegations were." But Greggain refused to undergo a polygraph, and that left the CPS with few options, Carroll said. The case was closed in February 2003 after Crown Attorney Murray MacDonald suggested charges against Greggain likely wouldn't stick if they went to trial. Latour testified at the inquiry last March about how disappointed he was Carroll didn't lay charges. There was a similar outcome in the Lalonde case, which began the day after Charles MacDonald's abuse charges were stayed in 2002. Carroll said he received a phone call from Dick Nadeau, the operator of a controversial website that covered the OPP's four-year Project Truth probe into whether a pedophile ring existed in the Cornwall area. Nadeau told him there were "new" allegations against MacDonald, Carroll said, and that police should contact Lalonde. In the ensuing year, Carroll took statements from Lalonde and his doctor, Luc Clermont, to whom he had disclosed the alleged abuse. Clermont told him that Lalonde's abuse recollections - which came to Lalonde as flashbacks in 1993 - were "vague" and couldn't be pinpointed specifically to MacDonald, Carroll said. A statement from a second doctor who was interviewed during Project Truth seemed to support Clermont's opinion, Carroll added. In January 2003, the Crown's office agreed with Carroll that he didn't have grounds to lay another set of charges. Unlike the Greggain investigation, Carroll decided not to interview MacDonald. When Dumais asked why, Carroll said the retired priest had already "gone through that before" with the OPP and probably wouldn't co-operate. "But sometimes you do (interview your suspect), sergeant?" suggested Dumais. "Sometimes you do," said Carroll. "I didn't interview Father Charlie." Carroll is set to return to the stand when the inquiry resumes this morning.
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