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	Inquiry: Lawyer Says Victims Need Answers "before They Can Move Forward" By David Nesseth Standard-Freeholder February 24, 2009 http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1448240 Victims Group lawyer Dallas Lee said he wanted to balance his oral phase one submissions between looking back and looking forward. He said his clients eagerly await the findings of Commissioner Normand Glaude realtive to the institutional response surrounding sexual abuse complaints. "They need answers before they can move forward," Lee said. He recalled the expert testimony of David Wolfe -- the Cornwall Public Inquiry's first witness -- in order to detail for the public some of the effects of childhood sexual abuse. "It can so thoroughly devastate the victims that investigations and prosecutions become more difficult," Lee said. Sexual abuse isn't like a broken bone, Lee added, noting that the wounds can often last a lifetime. For some clients, he said, there was the additional punishment of some of the abused children losing their faith and trust in the church. Lee adressed the "secrecy" that surrounded priests within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall. He described the Catholic church as having an "internal legal framework that is built around secrecy and a pre-disposition to work against the victim and in favour of accused priests." The Victims Group recommended government intervention into diocese responses to sexual abuse by clergy and a formal sexual abuse protocol that would become part of the local diocesan law. It also recommended that offending priests should not be returned to parishes or other ministry. CRITICIZED PROBATION OFFICE, SCHOOL BOARD Lee also criticized the response of the local probation office and a local school board in respect to sexual abuse allegations. He said it's "cold comfort" to his clients that society has become more vigilant at protecting children. Children, he added, "whose childhood horrors were only exacerbated by the Children's Aid Society's (CAS) intervention." Similar to the Coalition for Action, Lee recommended that CAS treat client files as belonging to its clients, not CAS. He said the files should be provided automatically to the clients after they leave its care. Lee also explored some of the complexities of the Cornwall Community Police Service's handling of the David Silmser case, notably by former chief Claude Shaver. "Shaver's own shameful performance as a witness at the Inquiry closed a sad chapter in this community's history," Lee said. He suggested that after reading the recent phase one submission by the Cornwall police, it's clear the force has learned next to nothing since the time of events that led to the inquiry. He challenged Commissioner Glaude to find admissions or concessions on any key points in the submission by local police. Lee read directly into the record the Victims Group statement on Const. Perry Dunlop: "The reasons that Dunlop and the community lost faith in their institutions and the effects of that lost faith are the real issues," Lee said. He also examined some of the barriers that made it difficult for his clients to report sexual abuse, as well as the confusion it created in the context of their sexual identities.
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