Victim exposes flawed court system

Cornwall Standard Freeholder
Claude McIntosh

Friday, October 20, 2006 - 10:00

Local News - The "slap-on-the-wrist" approach by our weak-kneed court system that treats victims as little more than a nuisance was left standing naked in the Weave Shed on Wednesday.

It was undressed by sexual assault victim Andre Lavoie, a documentary film-maker and one in a parade of victims and alleged victims who have or will testify at the Cornwall Inquiry.

To say Lavoie's testimony was compelling would be an understatement. Lavoie, as a young teen, was assaulted by a scoundrel called Robert Sabourin, a teacher at St. Lawrence High School.

Not just once, but many times.

Some of those assaults took place in a school office used by Sabourin, a lair where he liked to practise his dirty deeds.

And there were other young male students victimized by the rotten-to-the-core pedophile who used his position of trust to prey on innocent students, whom he used as his personal playthings.

In the end, Sabourin was arrested, charged and hauled before the courts.

Incredibly, the victims never got a chance to tell their horrible stories.

They were almost forgotten - no, make that completely forgotten - by the court system.

That's because Sabourin, his lawyer, the prosecutor and the judge played the old behind-closed-doors game of "Let's Make a Deal".

Its sanitized name is plea bargaining.

So, when the backroom game was played out, Sabourin went before the judge of the day and left with a two-year sentence without any of the chilling evidence presented in open court.

Yup, for destroying all those lives this piece of garbage got off with two years.

In the United States, where judges and prosecutors are held accountable at election time, this guy would have been sitting in the slammer for at least eight years, probably 15, or there would have been a judge and prosecutor looking for work.

Say what you want about the U.S. system, but at least judges and prosecutors are accountable to the public.

Here it has more to do with what political party you or your family supports. It's a cash for life deal.

To add insult to injury, Sabourin's victims received a call 15 months later to let them that their abuser was back out on the streets, courtesy of that criminal coddling slice of bureaucracy called the parole board.

He had a pretty "tough" release condition: He wasn't to go near his victims.

Wow. Fifteen months of a soft 24-month sentence and he's not to go near his victims. That's the best the system could do.

This isn't a rare case.

It happens all too often in our court system where the concern quickly switches to the rights of the accused while the victim sits in the corner waving a handkerchief and pleading, "What about me?"

In Lavoie's case, he was never consulted by the court system after the charges were laid.

Police - the guys caught in the middle of this lumbering system - asked him to compile a victim's statement.

He laboured on the statement during the summer, wrestling with every painful detail.

Because of the plea bargain he never got a chance to read it in court.

The courts like to sell the public on the hogwash that in "Let's make a deal (a.k.a. plea bargaining) they are doing it to save the victim the mental anguish of testifying in court.

But Lavoie - and other victims - were more than willing to stand up in court and read their chilling statements.

In Lavoie's case, he finally got that chance on Wednesday . . . some 25 years after the fact.

The well-spoken, articulate Lavoie would have been a prosecutor's dream.

But he was silenced. Not by a conspiracy, as some want us to believe, but by a broken-down system that cried out for reform.

Andre Lavoie was victimized twice - by Robert Sabourin and then by the court system.

Shame or sham?

A whole lot of both.

Listening to some of the "oh my gosh, how dare him" reaction after Mayor Phil announced at the end of the candidates meeting Wednesday night that a new employer would be unveiled, you would think that he gave away the combination number for the city hall vault.

What's the big deal!

What's with all this fresh commercial development around town by out-of-town groups?

Plans in the works for the old Bell building on Pitt Street to be redeveloped by out-of-town investor - retail space and condo units; the former Cornwall Electric building on Second Street East has been sold, an out-of-town investor plans to renovate with commercial and residential units; the former Giant Tiger building on Pitt is undergoing a facelift, again an out-of-town investor; and work on the former Mexicali Restaurant on lower Pitt started this week after it was purchased by an out-of-town investor.

Then there are the plans for shopping centres on the old No-Co-Rode site (Seventh and Cumberland streets) and Marlborough and Ninth streets (former Bell property).

Heart of City manager Denis Carr said it's all about reasonable property prices.

High real estate prices in the big cities - Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto - are steering investors to places like Cornwall, where commercial real estate is much cheaper.

World oil prices took another dip on Wednesday, sinking to $57.85.

But a strange thing happened around town. The pump price climbed to 85 cents from 79 cents at stations around town, all in a matter of minutes.

This after it was lowered ever so gently - a penny at a time - as the world price took a nosedive.

And, once again, the oil companies, through their public relations mouthpieces, performed a tap dance on why this happens.

If this were any other commodity, the word price gouging would be flowing off the lips of our federal leaders.

But they're part of the Big Gouge, ripping us off with a slew of pump taxes.

On a lighter note, charity hockey game Monday at Ed Lumley Arena (7 o'clock start) pits the Cornwall Celebs against MP Guy Lauzon and a squad culled from the federal Conservative caucus (Garth Turner excluded, of course).

The Conservative lineup will be unique to hockey. It doesn't have anybody playing left wing.

The Celebs are pretty unique, too. Each member of the team is paying ($25) to play with the players' kitty and gate receipts going to Habitat for Humanity.

There is no truth to the rumour that the Conservative side is kicking in lots of money to build a doghouse for the banished Turner.

Get well wishes go out to the unofficial mayor of downtown Cornwall, Mel Ouderkirk, who is spending some time in the Janet Macdonell Pavilion, no doubt entertaining the nurses.