22 May 2008: INQUIRY: Insufficient evidence to charge retired priest, former teacher 

21 May 2008: Inquiry begins to investigate allegations against local teacher

Terri Saunders

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - 10:00

Local News - A city man says a teacher he claims sexually abused him 40 years ago shouldn't be able to get away with the crime. Marc Latour told the Cornwall Public Inquiry he was repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted by Gilf Greggain, his Grade 3 teacher at St. Peter's Elementary School, in 1967.

Greggain has never been charged with any criminal offence in relation to Latour's allegations.

"He has to face justice for what he did to me, somehow, someway," said Latour. "I just can't let him go."

Latour said it was a desire to see his alleged abuser brought to justice which led him to call an Ontario Provincial Police hotline in June 2000.

At the time, an OPP investigative team called Project Truth was into its third year of a four-year probe into allegations of historical child sexual abuse in the Cornwall area.

Eventually, Latour would meet with officers from the Cornwall Community Police Service and make allegations he had been abused by Greggain on a number of occasions when Latour was eight years old.

Greggain does not have representation at the inquiry, although an official from the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association union was on hand during hearings Monday. Greggain was contacted by inquiry officials about the fact Latour would be testifying at the inquiry but did not seek any identity protection.

Latour said he got in some trouble at school one day and was sent to detention where Greggain was the supervisor. Over time, Latour found himself serving detention on a frequent basis and that's when the abuse started.

"Nobody was paying much attention to it after a while," said Latour, referring to the fact other teachers and even his own parents became reticent about his after-school punishments. "There were severe beatings where he'd put me over his knee with my pants down and he said I had the devil in me, that I would never amount to anything, that I would spend my life in jail for killing somebody."

Latour said Greggain began to sexually abuse him and with that came threats to keep quiet.

"He (Greggain) told me my mother had given him permission to do this to me," said Latour. "He told me not to tell anybody or things would get worse. I would cry out that I would tell my father and he said, 'If you tell your father, I'll kill your father.'

"I loved my father. I didn't want him to kill my father."

It was actually Latour's father who would take action to bring the alleged abuse to an end. Latour said he remembers one day when he was again serving detention under Greggain's supervision, and the teacher sexually assaulted him.

Latour said he ran from the school crying and was found by his father in a grassy area across the street from the school. After begging his father not to confront Greggain out of fear for his father's safety, Latour said he went with his father to the school where he overheard the two adult men arguing.

"My father confronted the teacher and I remember hearing my father say, 'If you ever touch my son again, I will kill you; I will break you in two,'" said Latour. "It was so overwhelming to me. I thought he (Greggain) was going to hurt my father."

Latour's father wasn't the only person he recalls coming to his defence.

After a meeting between the boy, his mother and the school's principal, Latour was given assurances the abuse would not continue. He returned against his will to Greggain's classroom, and recalls an incident where another teacher walked into the room and confronted the teacher.

"I remember she came in and she had a yardstick in her hand and she waved it at him," said Latour, who said he remembers the confrontation happened in front of the entire class of students. "She said, 'If you ever hurt Marc or any of these kids, I will beat you down like the dog you are and I will report you to the school board.'"

Latour's testimony continues today.