Church Leaders in Sex Assault Cases Not ‘working Together," Say Police

CBC News
April 10, 2014

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/church-leaders-in-sex-assault-cases-not-working-together-say-police-1.2605675

A former Calgary church pastor now living in Carstairs has been charged in connection with two sexual assaults that date back to the 1970s.

It's alleged some of the assaults took place at Western Baptist Church in northwest Calgary, which was the site of another investigation against a former deacon there.

The first victim alleges the abuse started in 1979 when she was five years old and continued for 10 years.

'There’s no indication to us that these two people were working together.'

- Child abuse unit Det. Jeff Klinger

The other victim says she was nine years old when she was first assaulted in 1986 and that the abuse continued until she was 18.

Both girls were parishioners at the Baptist church in northwest Calgary where the accused was a religious leader and teacher.

The assaults allegedly occurred in the church and at the home of the accused.

Pastor Thomas Larry Jones, now 69, faces several charges stemming from alleged assaults on two girls which lasted over a period of years. (Provincial Archives of Alberta)

Thomas Larry Jones, 69, faces numerous charges including gross indecency, indecent assault and sexual assault, interference and exploitation.

The allegations came to the attention of police following a similar case in 2012 when Russell Rodman, another leader at the same church, was charged with sexually assaulting three boys in the 1980s and '90s.

He was sentenced to 38 months in prison last April.

“There’s no indication to us that these two people were working together,” said child abuse unit Det. Jeff Klinger.

'It's a very unique situation'

“It’s a very unique situation. It would be very uncommon for us to come across two people in the same organization that would be, to the best of our knowledge unknowing to each other,... abuse going on against different preferred victims — one being male, the other being female.”

The Western Baptist Church in northwest Calgary has now been at the centre of two sexual assault investigations. (Elizabeth Snaddon/CBC)

Klinger said the two alleged victims who came forward with allegations against Jones were happy to learn he has now been arrested and charged.

One of the victims had come forward in 1993 but an investigation by the child abuse unit at that time failed to turn up enough evidence to lay charges, Klinger said.

However, Klinger said the allegations against Jones seem to have caused the congregation to disband sometime in the early 1990s.

“The church had come to a point where it kind of collapsed and he left the church at that time,” he said.

The church has since reconvened. Current pastor Michael Martin says he is shocked by the charges against Jones. He speaks very highly of "Pastor Jones," who goes by the name Larry, and believes the allegations are false.

Thomas Larry Jones, a now retired pastor from Calgary's Western Baptist Church, has been charged over alleged sexual assaults that began in 1979. (Provincial Archives of Alberta)