Cowichan Valley Citizen

Published: Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Andrea Rondeau, The Citizen

We'd have to look far and wide for a better example of a stupid waste of time, money, and emotional anguish.

This weekend, Perry Dunlop was finally let out of jail, where he's been languishing since February of this year, because he refused to lie down and accept the label of scapegoat in an Ontario inquiry into the handling of sexual abuse allegations there.

It's not as if he refused to provide the inquiry with information, either, he simply refused to be barraged with questions from a battary of lawyers -- lawyers who were not on his side.

So this good man, who blew the whistle, has been bullied by the system in a way that would have broken many of us.

Most of us are taught from childhood that if we stand up for our beliefs in this country, that it will be all right.

Perry Dunlop's experiences this year certainly make us feel uneasy about this ideal.

Surely the message shouldn't be that you keep your head down and your mouth shut, no matter what, and you'll be okay.

To add insult to injury, (though doubtless it is simply a relief to Perry and his family, at this point), the inquiry has decided they don't really need Dunlop to testify anyway.

So the last eight months that he spent in jail, in isolation, really was for absolutely no gain, for any party involved, let alone the taxpayers who footed the bill for Dunlop's imprisonment.

Cowichan Valley Citizen

Published: Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Lexi Bainas,

Duncan's Perry Dunlop is finally a free man and taking the first steps towards rebuilding his Cowichan Valley life following his release early Oct. 4 from an Ottawa jail.

The decorated, former Cornwall, Ontario police officer who moved his family west 15 years ago, is credited with bringing to light explosive allegations of widespread child sexual abuse in eastern Ontario.

However, after having handed Dunlop two jail sentences, the Cornwall inquiry has said it now has no need of his testimony anyway.

Wife, Helen Dunlop is bitter about that.

"He's a free man but he's not rehabilitated. He's still telling the truth. If they think they've changed him, they'll find he's still telling the same story he told 15 years ago."

She flew back to Ontario and was waiting outside the jail early Saturday to meet her husband on his release.

"I picked him up at 12:30, in reality, 00:30 a.m. in the morning, Saturday morning. They wouldn't give him one minute off. He had to do all of his time, every second of it."

Authorities managed to lose all of Dunlop's clothes while he was "inside" and he came out wearing a pair of sandals he borrowed from a fellow inmate.

Dunlop was isolated in a six-by-seven-foot cell for more than 230 days but even then, he could hear other people through the vents between the cells, according to his wife.

"When the inmates found out who Perry was, he was the jailhouse hero to the guards, the prisoners. He's often told me that the vast majority of them gave him more support than the police force or the attorney general's office ever did."

Now, the couple must work their way through the inevitable reaction to the cessation of their constant fight with the authorities, she says.

"When I woke up this morning and it washed over me I sort of fell apart for a while."

The Dunlops were anxious Tuesday to rejoin their three daughters in Duncan.

"The girls are dying to see their dad. They call seven or eight times a day. The girls have been through one hell of a nightmare," she said.

The impact has also gone beyond the Dunlop family.

"This has had a real devastating effect on a lot of Canadians. I've seen our friends, our family, just torn apart by this. People have a very hard time understanding why this has happened.