Reference to false allegation not fair

Cornwall Standard Freeholder

Letters to the Editor

13 December 2007

Last June, as he was giving his testimony before the Cornwall Inquiry, Ron Leroux recanted most of the allegations contained in his now infamous affidavit.

This was before he was even cross-examined, a process which I believe would have shown his document to have been completely fabricated.

Yet your reporters continue to refer to this affidavit without reminding readers of this fact. Not only that: last week your newspaper quoted this document, referring by name to a highly respected member in our diocese as an alleged criminal. These allegations were investigated at the time and found to be unsubstantiated, a fact your reporter neglected to mention. Moreover, no complaint has ever been received by diocesan staff against this person. I have no doubt that he is completely innocent of the allegation made in the affidavit renounced by its own author. But by bringing this allegation to the attention of your readers (when, by the way, it was not even inherent to the story of the day), the Standard-Freeholder contributes to maintaining an aura of suspicion around him, keeping alive a rumour which the author of the rumour himself has discredited.

This Cornwall Inquiry is aimed at healing. There were enough victims in the past without creating new ones. Damaging the reputations of innocent people will do nothing to heal the wounds of those who were truly hurt. It is worthy to note that Ms Mary Lynn Young, a media expert who testified before the inquiry, criticized newspaper reporting in Cornwall over the years as lacking in balance, depth and analysis. She testified that these practices directly contributed to the public's inability to sort out fact from fiction or rumour from reality. Our community needs and expects greater accuracy, fairness and balance from its only daily newspaper.

 Paul-Andre Durocher,

Bishop of Alexandria-Cornwall