By Tina Comeau
The Vanguard
January 24, 2011
http://www.thevanguard.ca/News/2011-01-24/article-2166200/40-sexual-assault-charges-laid/1
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A New Brunswick resident who was a priest in Yarmouth County decades ago has been charged with 40 sexual offences dating back to the 1970s.
The Yarmouth rural detachment of the RCMP has charged 81-year-old Albert LeBlanc with sexual offences relating to three victims. The offences are alleged to have occurred from 1970 to 1985 while LeBlanc resided in Yarmouth County.
The RCMP say due to privacy issues, they cannot comment on whether LeBlanc was a priest at the time any of these offences took place, saying that the Privacy Act prohibits the RCMP from disclosing LeBlanc’s employment history. After leaving the priesthood LeBlanc also worked as a probation office. The RCMP won't comment on that either.
The RCMP say the alleged victims were between the ages of seven and 11. A publication ban issued on Jan. 24 protects their identity. All of the victims are males.
The offences are alleged to have occurred from 1970 to 1985 while LeBlanc resided in Yarmouth County. He now lives in Bouctouche, N.S., which is where the arrest took place on Jan. 6.
The 40 charges include 11 charges of indecent assault and 29 charges of gross indecency. The charges date back to the Criminal Code charges that existed at the time the offences are alleged to have occurred.
LeBlanc is scheduled to appear in Yarmouth provincial court on March 15.
While he was a priest in Yarmouth, including his time as the parish priest at the Notre Dame de Fatima parish, LeBlanc was well-known and well liked. Described as an avid hockey player, minor hockey coach and fan, he organized several trips to Boston Bruins hockey games involving large groups of young boys, along with chaperones, from this area. Charter flights were arranged with Air Canada.
Sometimes the trips involved altar boys, sometimes local residents of Yarmouth and at least once members of a peewee hockey team he coached.
The trips would include one or two NHL hockey games in Boston and sometimes a Celtics basketball game. Often there were newspaper articles written about the trips. The articles outlined how LeBlanc’s connections with Boston Gardens officials granted the group of boys and chaperons access to the dressing rooms for autographs and to meet NHL players. One article describes one trip as a father-son affair.
Aside from attending church services during their trips, the itineraries also involved other activities like swimming at the YMCA or riding the subway. Even a television inside a hotel room was something not all of these young people had back home.
There were even media interviews with LeBlanc and others in the United States during these trips.
The RCMP is not saying whether any of the victims who have come forward alleging sexual abuse were involved in these hockey trips to Boston, nor will the RCMP say if any offences occurred in the United States.
The RCMP began its investigation last April after receiving a complaint of alleged sexual assault.
“The first complainant came on April 19, 2010, to our detachment,” says Sergeant Michel Lacroix. “Subsequent to that there were two more.”
The RCMP says given the fact that the allegations date back decades, this was a lengthy and complex investigation as aside from interviewing the complainants, they also had to locate and interview potential witnesses.
The police also consulted with the Crown before laying the charges.
Sgt. Lacroix says even with the passage of time, the charges still could be laid.
“On these types of offences there is no statute of limitation,” he says.
The RCMP say the investigation involving these three complainants is concluded. Whether or not more complainants may come forward is something the RCMP cannot speculate on.
“If the RCMP receive any more complaints of an alleged criminal act there will be a thorough investigation carried out,” says Sgt. Lacroix.
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