CANADA
The Telegram
Barb Sweet
Published on April 07, 2016
Mount Cashel civil trial enters third day
Courtroom No. 2 at Newfoundland Supreme Court in St. John’s was gripped this morning with a soft-spoken man’s testimony of marriage that he says failed because of his abuse experiences at Mount Cashel and a once-promising career derailed by alcoholism.
The man, now in his 70s, spent 11 years at the infamous St. John’s boys orphanage, run by the Catholic lay order Christian Brothers.
It was an eerie atmosphere when the witness softly sang to the court one chilling song that a taunting fellow resident who disliked him would recite about him being a teacher’s pet and wanting to be coddled by the Brother that he now claims was fondling him in his bunk many nights.
But the witness said he never told of the abuse to other boys and initially denied it to police decades later.
The man said he might have had a normal, happy life — not one of drinking, depression and boarding houses — had it not been for the abuse. Instead he said while he married and had a son, his wife eventually left him for another man because of his inability to perform sexually.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.