Guzzo all wet on allegations.....

Editorial

Cornwall Standard Freeholder

18 January 2008

Over the years, Garry Guzzo claimed that the police investigating allegations of a pedophile ring operating with impunity in the Cornwall area were either the equivalent of the Keystone Kops or involved in a massive cover-up. Perhaps a bit of both.

This, he explained, is why the alleged clan (the author of the tale testified he made it up) was never busted by police.

Guzzo claimed to have volumes of documents to prove, among other things, high profile members of the community were involved in the alleged pedophile clan.

Some members of this clan, Guzzo claimed, had on numerous occasions spirited young boys from Cornwall to a motel in Fort Lauderdale where they served as sex toys.

Guzzo said he had motel receipts to back up his claim. He had a list of names. At one point, he vowed to read out the names in the legislature.

The fact that Guzzo was a former judge made his allegations believable, not only by the public but by the media. Surely a man who had spent 11 years on the bench and had served as a lawyer wouldn't be dealing in innuendo and rumours.

Well, guess again.

After two days of intense questioning - by institutional lawyers - particularly by David Sherriff-Scott and Michael Neville - Guzzo left the witness box with his tail between his legs.

So much of what he pedaled as the truth all these years and helped stamp an indelible black mark on this community was short of fact and long on fiction.

Garry Guzzo owes this community, and the many people his allegations harmed, an apology.

We won't hold our breath.