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	Altar Boy's Story Sounds Truthful: Bell By Trevor Pritchard Standard-Freeholder October 22, 2008 http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1258107 The sexual abuse allegations levelled against a local priest by David Silmser had all the hallmarks of someone telling the truth, said the retired Children's Aid Society caseworker who interviewed him. In 1993 and 1994, Greg Bell co-led the agency's Project Blue investigation into allegations that Rev. Charles MacDonald had abused Silmser decades earlier, when he was an altar boy at St. Columban's Church in Cornwall. "(Silmser's story) was certainly consistent with my experience in disclosures made by adults who had been sexually abused as children," Bell told the Cornwall Public Inquiry Tuesday. "There was a tenor of anguish about his whole presentation." Yesterday was Bell's second and final day on the stand at the inquiry, which is probing how institutions like the CAS handled claims of historical sexual abuse. Bell testified that during their late 1993 interview, Silmser revealed two others had abused him: a probation officer named Ken Seguin, and Marcel Lalonde, a city teacher. Silmser was unable to describe many details of the alleged abuse, said Bell, and would only say that Lalonde "did the same thing" as the other men. "My sense of it was it was quite difficult for him to get to that point, to come and speak with us. It was a bit of a struggle to do it," said Bell. "I got a sense they were painful recollections." Only one of the three men -Lalonde - was ever convicted of sex crimes involving boys. MacDonald was charged in 1996, but those charges were stayed six years later when a judge ruled his right to a timely trial had been violated. He has always maintained his innocence. Seguin committed suicide in late 1993, around the time of Silmser's interview with the CAS, and was never charged. That death shook Silmser, said Bell. The Project Blue team tried to convince him to come in for another face-to-face meeting, to gather more information about his abuse claims, but never succeeded. "He too was aware Ken Seguin had committed suicide and felt, I think, to some degree responsible," said Bell. "I think he said something to me, at one point, (along the lines) of, 'I don't want another death on my conscience.'" The CAS also tried -without success - to interview MacDonald, who by that time had been sent to Southdown, a Toronto-area rehabilitation centre for priests, by the Alexandria-Cornwall Roman Catholic Diocese. Bell said Southdown wouldn't grant MacDonald leave to be interviewed. And the CAS, he said, was under the belief they didn't have permission to speak with the priest at the centre. The agency did conduct interviews with altar servers at St. Andrew's Parish, the church where MacDonald had last been celebrating mass. They wrapped up Project Blue in February 1994 and came to two conclusions: one, that MacDonald had likely abused Silmser, and two, that no current children were at risk. Diocese lawyer David Sherriff-Scott wanted to know from Bell why the CAS didn't launch a similar investigation into Lalonde. "You went out and interviewed all kindsof altarboysatSt. Andrew'sWest. You didn't do anything with respect to pupils at a local school, who were in contact with the teacher every day," he said. "Is Charles MacDonald (more of a) politically hot potato for you?" By 1994, the statement Silmser gave to Cornwall police, detailing his allegations against MacDonald, had made it into the media. Bell said he believed the CAS simply didn't have enough information about Lalonde to warrant that "degree of intrusion." "It's the kind of judgment call that's difficult to make," he said. "The hope was that we would have more (information from Silmser) and be able to pursue it."
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