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	Alleged Abuse Victim Testimony Would Turn Cornwall Inquiry into Trial: Lawyer By Tara Brautigam Canada.com March 29, 2006 http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=f738e65a-1075-41c7-a4b5-463fb24ba060&k=28843 Cornwall, Ont. (CP) - Alleged child abuse victims should not take the stand at an eastern Ontario inquiry into the handling of such accusations because it would effectively retry a retired priest, a lawyer argued Wednesday. "For them to come here and now make a criminal accusation against our client and to leave it at that without more would not be a full inquiry," said Giuseppe Cipriano, a lawyer for Rev. Charles MacDonald. The retired priest was accused of being part of a group of pedophiles that allegedly victimized children for decades, but charges against him were stayed in May 2002 after a judge ruled his right to a speedy trial had been violated. A lengthy police investigation in the 1990s concluded that there was no evidence of a pedophile ring. Accusations from alleged victims could turn the inquiry into a trial against MacDonald and leave the impression he is guilty, Cipriano said in arguing his motion to prevent their testimony. But lead commission counsel Peter Engelmann said the inquiry won't delve into the validity of their claims, but rather whether their statements accurately reflect what they told police, probation officers and other authorities. "We will not be asking these individuals whether the full gambit of the allegations therein are true," Engelmann said. "I've said it on many occasions." Those who say they suffered incidents of child sexual abuse dating back decades fear that community efforts to heal - one of the chief goals of the inquiry - would be hindered if they were prevented from testifying. The mandate of the Cornwall public inquiry, launched by the Ontario government in April 2005, is to examine the response of the justice system and other public institutions to long-standing allegations of sexual abuse. For decades, this blue-collar city of 46,000 has been at the centre of lingering stories about a purported underground network of pedophiles that existed since the late 1950s and allegedly involved prominent members of this city's Roman Catholic clergy. Police laid 114 charges against 15 men in the 1990s after a sweeping investigation known as Project Truth, netting suspects including a doctor, a lawyer and three priests. In the end, only five cases ever made it to court, resulting in four acquittals and one man pleading guilty.
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