LONDON (CANADA)
London Free Press [London, Ontario, Canada]
June 14, 2023
By Jane Sims
Disgraced former Anglican priest David Norton had been “our role model, our guardian, almost like a parent,” to two boys growing up in the Yukon.
Editor’s note: David Norton was found guilty Wednesday of two counts each of indecent assault, sexual assault and sexual interference. He is going to be sentenced Friday. An updated story will be posted later.
To two boys growing up in the Yukon, disgraced former Anglican priest David Norton had been “(their) role model, (their) guardian, almost like a parent.”
But when the brothers read online newspaper stories about Norton’s convictions in 2018 for sexual abusing little boys in the London area, they realized “our story was identical,” one of them testified in a Whitehorse courtroom.
“There were two parts to Dave,” he said. “One was this great role model and the other were the parts we’re talking about today . . . we wanted to get rid of that part.”
Norton, 77, who was also an award-winning history professor at King’s University College before he resigned, is serving 13 years in prison for the sexual abuse of four Indigenous boys at St. Andrew’s church at Chippewa of The Thames First Nation in the 1970s and 1980s and another boy at St. Mark’s in London in the 1990s.
He’s back on trial again this week, via a video link from prison to the Territorial Court, where he has pleaded not guilty to six similar offences involving the brothers, whose identities are protected by court order, when Norton was the “Indian Ministries Co-ordinator” for the Diocese of Yukon and the incumbent priest at St. Simon’s Church in Whitehorse between 1983 and 1987.
Like the Chippewa victims, the Yukon brothers are Indigenous. Like all of Norton’s victims, they were groomed and mentored before they were sexually abused by Norton, the prosecution says.
It was emotional testimony from the 48-year-old man, clearly conflicted about the happy times he spent with Norton between the ages of eight and 12 compared to the horror he described while sleeping over at the rectory.
“It kind of looks like he’s got himself into a bit of a bind,” the witness said, looking up at the video monitor in the courtroom where he could see Norton seated in a small room at the prison.
The witness started to cry. “I don’t wish no harm upon him. He was my friend for a long time . . . It makes me sad to see him like that. I just want to shake his hand and say sorry about this stuff.”
“Can you hear that, Mr. Norton?” asked federal prosecutor Noel Sinclair.
“Yeah, I can,” Norton said.
The witness told Chief Judge Michael Cozens that he and his brother lived with their parents not far from the St. Simon’s rectory. When their father wasn’t working, he was drinking and doing drugs with his friends. Often, on weekends, the witness said, there would be strangers sleeping on their couches, surrounded by empties, pot and cocaine.
Their mother, now deceased, looked after their special needs sister while working to support the family.
The brothers met Norton in 1983, when he was visiting their dying grandmother in hospital. They started attending church with their mother and became altar boys.
Norton became a central figure in their lives. He took them camping and boating. Every week they would go with Norton to his other parish in Carcross, Yukon, where they would sometimes snowmobile and hike. The witness said Norton taught him to read.
In 1984, the brothers travelled by bus with two older family members to Norton’s wedding in Ontario. They stayed at Norton’s property near Belmont for a week. The next year, it was a month.
Norton took them to the beach every day during a heat wave. He took them to a neighbour’s farm where they saw their first pigs and horses. He let them steer his Jeep while sitting on his lap. In 1985 and 1986, he took the witness to the Bahamas where Norton had friends. On at least one of the journeys to Ontario, they travelled with Norton to the West Edmonton Mall.
“We got a lot of stuff that we wouldn’t otherwise have gotten,” the witness said.
Every weekend and sometimes during the week, they stayed with Norton at his apartment in the Whitehorse rectory. He fed them food they would never have at home, such as ravioli. Norton would sometimes drive them to school. And sometimes, there were boys from Ontario visiting.
Norton was “someone who would look out for us. I feel like there was a time that I wanted to stop going home. I was enjoying myself over there,” the witness testified.
But, Norton often kissed them, to the point where the witness said he felt awkward. And the sleeping arrangements at the rectory were troubling.
The witness said he and his brother, and sometimes another boy, would sleep with Norton on a double “foamy” mattress. They would be “giddy” about choosing who would sleep beside Norton.
“You know, I feel like those two younger ones knew more than I did because I don’t think I knew at the time what was going on,” he said.
The witness testified the younger boys refused to sleep beside the priest, so he did. All of them, including Norton, would be in their underwear at bedtime and would sleep on their sides – so close, they would be “spooning.”
The witness said he remembered waking up to find Norton’s hands in his underwear touching his private areas. Sometimes, the bed would shake and Norton made noises.
He estimated there were at least 10 assaults and three times he woke up to Norton’s touch. He recalled “always waking up tired. I feel like I was always trying to roll away . . . Maybe, while I was sleeping something was initiated (and) I was trying to roll away trying to protect myself.”
Once, he said, he elbowed Norton hard in the stomach. The next day, Norton told the boy that he was missing his wife and confused him for her while he was sleeping, “which I don’t really think was the case,” the witness testified.
In 1987, Norton returned to Ontario permanently and the witness said he felt “abandoned . . . The person you were looking up to, the person you thought was your friend, the person who picked you up from school, the person who took you to work with him . . . It was just another thing gone.”
He turned to drugs and alcohol from his teens and into his 20s. In 2002, when he was still in school, he was “a sinking ship and I was going down and I was grabbing onto anything” and the abuse had been “the greatest trauma in my life,” he testified.
He was “liquored up” when he drummed up the courage to call Norton, who hung up on him. The witness said he called Norton back and told him, “If you ever do this again to another kid, I’m coming forward.”
That wouldn’t happen for more than a decade and after Norton was charged in Ontario. After speaking to his brother, he went to the police. His brother wouldn’t go until a year later.
The trial continues.