Victims have their say at Cornwall inquiry 

Ottawa Sun Web Extra 

01 June 2007

By CP

A man told an inquiry on Thursday he consented to sexual activity with a teacher he says assaulted him in the early 1970s.

The man, who cannot be identified due to a pre-existing court-ordered publication ban, said he suffered the abuse at the hands of Marcel Lalonde, a former city school teacher.

Near the end of the day, while being questioned by his own lawyer, the man admitted he agreed to the sexual activity.

“Yes,” the man replied when attorney Lori Harreman asked him if Lalonde had asked to have sex with him.

The man told the inquiry probing the institutional response to allegations of systemic sexual abuse in the Cornwall area that the sex was consensual.

“But I had consumed alcohol,” he said.

The man had also testified that Lalonde had taken pictures of him while he was naked.

The man has testified despite the fact he gave consent, the activity constituted a sexual assault because of the circumstances surrounding the incidents.

“We mostly talked and drank wine and I didn’t feel well,” said the man, who said he was between the ages of 15 and 16 when the incidents occurred. “I was so drunk. I laid down and when I woke up, I was being assaulted.”

Lalonde was convicted in the spring of 2001 of a number of sex-related offences.

He was sentenced to two years custody to be served partially in jail and partially in the community. Lalonde was not convicted of charges related to the man who testified at the inquiry Thursday.

The man also testified he was sexually assaulted by Rev. Charles MacDonald when he was an altar boy at St. Columban’s Church years earlier when he was 11 or 12 years old.

The man said he recalled a day when the priest took him into the basement of the church.

“He (MacDonald) asked if I wanted to go down in the basement, to see what it was like,” the man told police in 1997. “I felt almost honoured that I was being taken (there.)”

The man said while they were in the basement, MacDonald hugged him and fondled his genitals. MacDonald was charged in 1996 with a number of sex-related offences.

Those charges were stayed in 2002 when a judge determined it had taken too long to bring the matter to trial.

The man told the inquiry Thursday he stopped going to church following the alleged incident with MacDonald and when he later had his own children, he did not bring them up in the Catholic faith.

Also on Thursday, a woman who says she was repeatedly physically, sexually and emotionally abused as a child by her mother and at least one foster parent said the experience of testifying at the inquiry has been a good one.

“This has been very helpful for me,” said Cathy Sutherland, following her testimony. “To be able to come here it’s a gift.”