By Dan Ferguson
Surrey Leader
July 23, 2009
http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/surreyleader/news/51521157.html
A Surrey man who molested dozens of boys in the 1970s and 1980s has been granted parole.
The decision to release Ralph Rowe has drawn outrage from the 18 small First Nations communities in Ontario where the attacks took place.
Nishnawbe Aski Nation Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler said Rowe should have remained in prison because he was recently convicted of seven more sexual assaults that occurred during those years.
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| Ralph Rowe molested dozens of First Nations boys, some as young as six. |
However, the Kenora, Ontario Superior Court judge who convicted Rowe decided he should not serve any more time in prison because the "serial prosecution" of the 69-year-old former priest amounted to a harsh punishment.
Rowe was released July 2, one day after he was convicted on the new charges – six counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual assault.
On Wednesday, Fiddler said the decision to free the convicted pedophile was an "insult" to the young men who testified against Rowe at his most recent trial.
Fiddler urged the Crown prosecutor's office to appeal the decision.
"He is not rehabilitated," Fiddler told The Leader, noting that Rowe failed to complete counselling courses for sex offenders while in jail.
"This [Rowe's release] should be a concern to all the families where he might reside."
Rowe has been convicted three times for molesting boys as young as six during the late 1970s and 1980s while he was working as a travelling minister to remote First Nations communities in Northern Ontario.
He came to live in Surrey after his first conviction in 1994.
The former Boy Scout leader had pleaded guilty to 39 counts of indecent assault and served four-and-a-half years of a six-year sentence.
At the time, one Crown prosecutor described Rowe as one of the most prolific pedophiles Canada has ever seen.
After he was granted parole, Rowe left his home in Thompson, Manitoba and went to live in Surrey, where his older brother Ernest "Art" Rowe, a retired minister from Fort. St. John worked as a fill-in minister at St. Michael's Anglican church in Newton.
Members of the St. Michael's congregation remember Ralph Rowe as a soft-spoken person who maintained a low profile until his brother's death in 2003.
After that, they said Rowe began to take a more prominent role, singing with the church choir and occasionally delivering prayers from the front of the church, not as a minister but as a lay member of the church.
The congregation was never informed of Rowe's criminal convictions.
At the time, Canadian police did not routinely notify communities about the presence of a potentially dangerous sexual offender.
Rowe's past did not come to light until he was arrested in 2007 on new charges of forcible rape and attempted rape.
He was convicted and sentenced to another three years in jail.
Contact: dferguson@surreyleader.com
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