Jane Doe case OK’d against former clergy

By Barb Sweet
Telegram
November 15, 2014

http://www.thetelegram.com/section/2014-11-15/article-3940557/Jane-Doe-case-OK%26rsquo%3Bd-against-former-clergy/1

Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador

A Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court judge gave approval Friday for a woman to proceed as Jane Doe in a pending new civil case against a former doctor and minister convicted in the 1980s of sexually abusing children.

The court order by Justice Deborah Paquette allows the woman to keep her name confidential and also excludes the naming of her small community.

It stems from an application made by lawyer Will Hiscock of Budden and Associates. The order paves the way for a statement of claim to be filed, which has not happened yet.

Stephen James Collins worked as a minister and later as a doctor in this province until he was arrested and pleaded guilty in the 1980s to sexually abusing 11 children in the Baie Verte and La Scie area. After his arrest he was diagnosed as a pedophile.

The woman in Hiscock’s case — which indicates it will name Collins as a first respondent and the United Church of Canada as a second respondent — makes claims of abuse that would have happened much earlier than Collins’ criminal convictions and allegedly took place while he was a minister in this province during the 1960s.

Her claims have not been proven in court.

The type of abuse the woman alleges to have suffered is similar to that for which Collins was convicted in the 1980s.

The woman did not go to the police, but claims she has suffered years of anguish because of the sexual abuse she endured at Collins’ hands on many occasions as a child between the ages of eight and 13, according to the application.

It claims he was a minister in her community and that she attended Sunday school and youth choir, as well as youth events at his residence, the church manse, between about 1964-70.

After he was charged in the 1980s and his case was before the courts, Collins claimed to a psychiatrist that there was no relationship between him and children until he went to Baie Verte in  the early 1970s. That evidence is contained in a court transcript from July 1986.

Hiscock said Friday he is confident in his client’s account of what happened to her as a child.

“It’s quite likely that the evidence he gave at court will be proven incorrect when we have our chance at court,” he told The Telegram. “We very strongly believe our client was sexually abused, and was sexually abused by Collins in the period that she stated. And we feel that will be borne out.

“There were threats and insinuations placed upon his position as a spokesperson for God to the young child that she should keep quiet, that she wouldn’t be believed. … And I think it would be realistic to suggest that there are many other victims out there, many of whom were unwilling at the time, for one reason or another, to come forward, for whom they still may have difficulty coming forward, but for whom an adult perspective on the situation they went through as a child might provide added insight to encourage them to come forward.”

The offences for which Collins was criminally convicted involved  children ranging in age from seven to 11 over the period 1975-86 in Baie Verte and La Scie. All but two of the children were female.

The incidents consisted of the display and encouragement of nudity, photographing and displaying photographs of nude children, fondling, kissing, masturbation, oral sex and attempts at sexual intercourse with a female child.

In 1986, Collins pleaded guilty to seven counts of sexual assault and four counts of indecent assault.

On appeal in 1987, Collins was sentenced to two years in prison and three years’ probation, during which time he was to receive treatment.

Collins is believed to be living in Angola, but lawyers say they have not been able to track down his most recent address.

A 2005 statement of claim filed against him and the church by St. John’s lawyer Bob Buckingham, representing a Jane Doe involved in the Baie Verte Peninsula criminal case, said he was living in Humpata, Angola, and working as a medical missionary. Collins grew up in Africa after being born to  parents who were missionaries there.

That 2005 case was eventually settled, but Buckingham has another case before the courts. Launched in 2013, it involves a woman who claims to have been sexually abused as a child in the 1980s while she was in youth choir, but who was not among the children listed as victims in the criminal case.

Collins’ name was stricken from the register by this province’s medical licensing board in 1987, according to the Newfoundland and Labrador College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The then-Newfoundland Medical Board would have notified other jurisdictions in Canada and the U.S. of the penalty, and many countries, such as the United Kingdom, would have checked on his last certificate of licence.

But given the communications of the time, it’s unknown what the process would be in the situation of a country such as Angola.

The Telegram attempted to contact the Ordem dos Medicos de Angola. Emails were not replied to and when reached by phone, a staff member, speaking in French, told a Telegram reporter he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, and indicated the person who is authorized was not available.

A doctor named Stephen James Fraser Collins is, according to the organization’s website, registered at the Hospital Central da Huila. That name matches the name of a man who received a medical degree in Canada and has similar educational credentials as Collins.

Collins’ first pastoral position in the province was in 1963 in Labrador. Around 1974, he began practising medicine in Baie Verte. After tropical medicine training and a two-year posting to Zaire, he went to La Scie in 1983. After he became a doctor, Collins acted in a lay capacity with the church, including having roles in adult and youth choirs.

The United Church, which has denied liability, placed Collins on its discontinued service list in 1986.