BishopAccountability.org
	Charges against Priest Should Be Dropped -Defence Sex Assault Trial: Closing Arguments Entering Third Day By Bob Vaillancourt North Bay Nugget May 27, 2009 http://www.nugget.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1585274 Legal arguments continue for the third day today in the trial of Roman Catholic Priest Bernard Cloutier, who faces 16 sex charges over alleged incidents involving five young males from 1970 to 1983. The charges include seven counts of gross indecency, seven counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault. The charges first came to light in 1983 when two of the five complained to police they had been sexually assaulted by the priest. But a police office, now retired, testified that he interviewed the two at the home of a parent in 1983 and found they had recanted their allegation. The allegations resurfaced in 2007, when one of the two came forward. Cloutier was serving as parish priest at Paroisse Saints-Anges in North Bay when he was charged in June 2007. Notes the police officer took of that 1983 meeting have since been destroyed as part of a Sudbury police policy of purging dated material, the trial has been told. Cloutier's lawyer has used that destruction to argue the charges against the priest relating to the two boys should be stayed. Greg Ellies said those notes would support the police officer's testimony that there was no basis for the charges. Not having access to the notes impairs the priest's right to a fair trial, Ellies argued. But prosecutor Diana Fuller contended there is only the officer's memory that he interviewed the boys. And that testimony is contradicted by the parents, who testified the meeting between the two families and the police had just got started when Cloutier and Bishop Gerard Dionne arrived. The bishop immediately took over the meeting, the father of one of the boys has testified. The bishop went upstairs, interviewed each boy separately and told the waiting parents that nothing had happened, said the boy's father. The meeting ended when the bishop got the parents to agree not to press charges in exchange for Cloutier seeking professional help for his problem, said the parent. Ellies said that agreement is another reason charges against his client should be dropped. The parents, on behalf of the children, reached an agreement with the police and with the bishop not to proceed with a prosecution," he told Superior Court Justice Paul Kane. As a result of that agreement, Cloutier got treatment from May to November of that year at the Southdown (Emmanuel Convalescent Centre) in Aurora. However, Fuller argued the parents and the boys were coerced into the agreement by the bishop. They were intimidated by the presence of the priest, the bishop and the respect they had for the Catholic Church, Fuller said. These boys considered the priest to be a friend and didn't want him to go to jail, she said. The bishop had what we would call an (human relations) problem," said Fuller. It was in the church's interest to avoid scandal, she said. The bishop basically shut down the investigation and, before you know it, Father Cloutier had a new parish."
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.