IQALUIT (CANADA)
Nunatsiaq News [Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada]
January 30, 2025
By Arty Sarkisian
Judge calls Eric Dejaeger a ‘calculated predator’ who ‘destroyed’ childhoods
Former Roman Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger was sentenced to six years in federal prison Thursday after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting seven children in Igloolik more than 40 years ago.
Dejaeger, 77, is a “calculated predator” who “destroyed their childhood,” Justice Faiyaz Alibhai said while sentencing him in an Iqaluit courtroom.
Before reading out the sentence, Alibhai offered Dejaeger a chance to make a final statement.
About 20 people — including some surviving victims and their family members — looked on from the gallery as Dejaeger asked for forgiveness.
Some of the victims started crying.
“For what it’s worth, I am a changed person,” Dejaeger said, adding that in his time in prison he had time to reflect.
“And also, in the past 40 years I have not reoffended.”
Alibhai called a 15-minute recess to consider Dejaeger’s words.
After returning, he said Dejaeger is “truly remorseful for his actions,” adding that his guilty plea is a “significant” mitigating factor in the sentence because it saved the victims from having to testify in court.
The charges against Dejaeger relate to his time working as an Oblate priest in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982. One of the assaults happened during a confession, Alibhai noted.
While court documents list six victims, whom Nunatsiaq News cannot name due to a court-ordered publication ban, Alibhai read out summaries of accounts from seven victims. Crown prosecutor Emma Baasch confirmed Dejaeger was convicted of assaulting seven victims, not six, but did not provide any other details.
Most of Dejaeger’s victims were between four and nine years old. Two of them did not live to see the ex-priest brought to justice, Alibhai said.
Dejaeger would tell the children that they would “go to hell” or that “Jesus wouldn’t accept them” if they ever told anyone about what he did to them.
Since the start of the trial just over a week ago, the surviving victims spent much of their time in court facing their abuser during his several appearances.
They hugged and cried after the sentence.
In their impact statements read in court on Jan. 23, all of the surviving victims, now in their fifties, and family members of victims, said Dejaeger’s crimes affected their entire lives.
“I hope you rot in hell,” one of the victims said. “You are a selfish demon.”
At the time, the victim thought Dejaeger’s behaviour was normal for a priest. But now, all the victims say Dejaeger’s abuse changed their relationship with the church. Some blamed higher-ranking priests for not listening to them or stopping their abuser.
Dejaeger was charged in June 2023 after he was arrested by police in Kingston, Ont., on a Canada-wide warrant.
Previously, in 2015, Dejaeger was sentenced to 11 years in prison after being convicted on 32 charges, mostly involving sexual molestation of children in Igloolik, including indecent assault, sexual assault, forcible confinement and bestiality.
Dejaeger was released from prison in 2022 by the Parole Board of Canada.
Over the years, the official list of Dejaeger’s victims numbers more than 30 young people.
On the most recent convictions, Crown prosecutor Emma Baasch and Dejaeger’s lawyer, Scott Cowan, suggested a six-year prison term in a joint submission, which Alibhai agreed with.
The sentence will last until Dejaeger is “near the end of his natural lifespan,” Alibhai said. By that point, the ex-priest would be 83 years old.