MONTREAL (CANADA)
Montreal Gazette [Montreal, Quebec, Canada]
June 27, 2024
By Paul Cherry
But Brian Boucher will soon qualify for a statutory release even though he is currently charged with sexually assaulting a fellow inmate last year.
Brian Boucher, who sexually abused two teenage boys while he was a Catholic priest in Montreal, has been denied parole as he continues to serve an eight-year prison term.
In a decision made this week, the Parole Board of Canada denied Boucher, 62, both day and full parole. It also ordered that a series of conditions be imposed on Boucher when he will soon qualify for a statutory release.Article content
Almost all offenders serving time in federal penitentiaries automatically qualify for a release after they reach the two-thirds mark of their sentence if they were not previously granted parole.
In Boucher’s case, the parole board ordered that he reside at a halfway house when he is released. He is not allowed to contact the victims of his abuse or their families. He is also not allowed to have contact with minors unless they are accompanied by an adult who is aware of his criminal record.
Boucher will qualify for the release even though he currently faces criminal charges at the Laval courthouse. Last year, he was charged with sexually assaulting another inmate as well as voyeurism and harassment. That case returns to court in July.
A written summary of the board’s decision describes how Boucher has been a problem for Correctional Service Canada and has been transferred to different penitentiaries because of conflicts he had with other inmates.
Last year, guards noticed a “strong attachment” between Boucher and a young inmate.
“Your case management team learned the young offender was locking himself in his cell to avoid your harassment. In the same month, he expressed his discomfort to his program officer that you were rigid in your opinions and somewhat invasive, even going to talk to him when he was in the shower,” the parole board wrote.
“He said you refused his request to give him distance. The decision was made to remove you from the unit. The following day, the alleged victim finally confessed that over the previous weeks you had committed non-consensual sexual touching on different parts of his body.
“He said you also followed him in the shower and made derogatory comments about his body. You were thus emergency-transferred to (another penitentiary) following these alleged sexual offences.”
The decision notes that Boucher denies the allegations.
The parole board’s decision references a report, produced in September 2020, following an inquiry ordered by the Catholic Church into Boucher’s time as a priest.
“(The report) revealed that several complaints were made against you since the early 1980s concerning your unacceptable behaviour and interest in young boys. In 2002, your name was included on an official list of potential pedophilic priests, produced by a member of the clergy. The report also detailed an event where you were allegedly caught wrestling on the sofa with your first victim, aged (redacted) at the time,” the parole board noted in the summary of its decision.Article content
“In early 2000, church authorities removed you from your parish functions with the unacknowledged goal to keep you away from the first victim, while still allowing you to become a parish assistant at a different church in the area. Authorities of this church were not comfortable with your relationship with the victim. However, you have allegedly constantly threatened to bring legal action against anyone who dared criticize you.”
One reason Boucher was denied parole is because he refuses to admit to having sexually abused the two teenage boys even though he pleaded guilty in one of the two cases that were brought against him.
On Jan. 8, 2019, Boucher was found guilty of sexually abusing a young boy between 2008 and 2011 while he was the boy’s parish priest. After he was found guilty, Boucher pleaded guilty in another case and admitted in court that he sexually assaulted a different boy between 1995 and 1999.
On June 21, 2019, he was sentenced to an eight-year prison term. The following year, Montreal’s archdiocese announced that Boucher was officially defrocked.
“Your level of accountability was originally assessed as moderate, but it was reassessed to low after you often repeated that you will never acknowledge the offences that you plead guilty to because you did not commit them, despite the fact that you had initially admitted to part of them. According to your case management team, by denying having committed the offences, your ability to see the seriousness of the harm inflicted on the victims is non-existent,” the parole board wrote.
“As well, during your programming, you effectively avoided the sexual components. You have also demonstrated little to no accountability regarding the string of problematic situations that have arisen during your incarceration, deciding instead to blame others. Your level of motivation is assessed as moderate.”