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	Woman Hails Sex Abuse Settlement As Victory By Susan Gamble The Expositor May 9, 2009 http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1560624 A Simcoe woman, who is suing an area organization of priests for sexual assault that occurred while she was a student, is calling a $2-million settlement in a London case a huge victory. But Donna Dempsey said Friday that the real victory isn't victim Lou Ann Soontiens' monetary settlement from the Roman Catholic Diocese of London that was announced. "The biggest victory for Lou Ann is the chance to publish her book," said Dempsey. "For her to be able to tell her story will be her greatest closure." As a young girl, Soontiens was abused by Father Charles Sylvestre for years and then was impregnated by him. He forced her to have an abortion when she was 14. Her settlement from the church is being called the largest of its kind. Sylvestre --who worked in Chatham, Port Dover, Pain Court, Sarnia, London, Windsor --was convicted of abusing 47 girls between 1954 and 1985. In 2007, he died in prison after three months of incarceration. Dempsey says her perpetrator was Father Patrick Mackan, a former principal of St. John's College in Brantford, who died in 1990, well before Dempsey launched her lawsuit. She said she drew strength to sue the church, the school board and Mackan's religious community, The Congregation of the Resurrection, after two Brantford woman sued the separate school board for incidents that occurred when they were students at St. John's at almost the same time. In September 2003, Dempsey and her lawyer Deborah Ditchfield, launched her suit with a public news conference. It named the Brant- Haldimand-Norfolk Catholic School Board and the Hamilton diocese of the Roman Catholic Church but, after some drawn-out legal posturing, those two were dropped from the suit in return for an unnamed "small" settlement. VICTORY Discovery process for trial was arduous, Dempsey says The school board argued that it didn't actual employ Mackan when the abuse began. Mackan was never named in the suit because he was dead. Today --almost six years later -- Dempsey is waiting to hear about a possible trial date. The discovery process for the trial was arduous, she says. Whereas most of Sylvestre's victims were in discovery for about half a day, Dempsey's process dragged on for more than five days. "The clerk who was recording during discovery said it was the longest case she'd ever recorded. I think they're trying to make me either give up or die!" Instead, the stress of the long wait has increased Dempsey's anxieties but failed to decrease her determination. She can't work and has stress-related fibromyalgia, permanent nerve damage from prolonged cases of shingles and post-traumatic stress disorder. She had an eight-week stay in a psychiatric treatment centre to help deal with her trauma. "I still wake up at times screaming and kicking. Some days, when I'm practising yoga and I can stay in the present, I know I can't make it happen any faster." Meanwhile, Dempsey says it's the faithful Catholics who are paying for the lawyers arguing against her suit. "How much money have the people in the pews paid just to get us close to a trial date?" But Soontiens' settlement is some comfort. "She deserves every penning for her mental anguish and it gives hope to all of us who are waiting." Dempsey noted that Soontiens' settlement is especially important for woman since, the largest settlements from the Catholic church have gone to men who were raped by priests. "It seems to me , the public envisions the rape of a man as more hideous than that of a woman. We are seen as being the temptress, the seducer." She said she's not looking to top Soontiens settlement, but simply needs her story to be validated and her trauma issues to be covered. Her initial suit sought damages of $3 million for sexual assault and battery, harassment, mental and emotional suffering, breach of fiduciary duty and punitive damages. "I want closure and enough to pay for my medical and health needs." Dempsey encourages anyone who has suffered abuse to talk to someone about it and not bury it.
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