CANADA
The Chronicle-Herald
IF you’re looking to gain some perspective on last week’s quick release of disgraced former bishop Raymond Lahey, we have just the man for you.
His name is Philip Latimer and he hails from Inverness County. The 50-year-old man is suing the Roman Catholic Church over sexual abuse he says he suffered as a boy at the hands of a priest who has since died.
Mr. Latimer is a welder, not a lawyer, but his layman’s insights are no less astute. “I don’t call this a justice system. I call it a legal system,” he told The Chronicle Herald after Mr. Lahey was sentenced to time served and walked out of an Ottawa courtroom.
Most Nova Scotians would be hard-pressed to disagree with that analysis. Just last month, the general public was dismayed to see the molestation convictions against another high-profile defendant, Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh, struck down because the case took too long to wend its way through the courts. And now the ex-bishop of Antigonish, who was nabbed at the Ottawa airport two years ago with a cache of pornographic images of young boys on his laptop, is already on parole because he was awarded a two-for-one credit on time spent in jail while awaiting sentencing.
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