Ex-Cornwall cop who alleged Cornwall pedophile ring refuses to testify at inquiry 

CNews Network (Canoe News)

January 9, 2008

By Dirk Meissner, THE CANADIAN PRESS

DUNCAN, B.C. - A decorated former police officer at the centre of an investigation into explosive allegations that a pedophile ring of prominent citizens was preying on young boys in eastern Ontario says he won't testify at an inquiry Monday.

Perry Dunlop has been scheduled to testify but he told The Canadian Press in an exclusive interview he won't be there because he's lost faith in the justice system.

He said he's prepared to face the consequences if he's arrested.

Dunlop, 46, was convicted of contempt of court last September for his earlier refusal to testify at the inquiry.

"I don't have much of a choice, really, so I'll face whatever," he said in an interview in a local coffee shop.

"I have a lot of reasons, but I'm not going to testify," he said.

"I'm saying our judicial system is broken and they haven't listened to me for 15 years, and I have no faith. Absolutely no faith, none."

Dunlop has rarely spoken publicly since he first made the allegations in 1993.

Prominent members of the Cornwall region's Roman Catholic clergy were among those accused of being part of a pedophile ring that some alleged had existed in the eastern Ontario city since the early 1960s.

In August 2001, Ontario Provincial Police ended a four-year probe of the alleged ring, dubbed Project Truth, with the conclusion that the allegations were baseless.

Project Truth ended after 672 people were interviewed and 69 complainants were identified. Some of the allegations stemmed back to the 1960s.

As a result of the probe, 15 people were charged with a total of 115 offences ranging from gross indecency to indecent assault on a male and sexual assault on a male.

Many individuals were later found guilty of paying underage boys for sex; two were found guilty of possessing child pornography.

When all was said and done, courts and the police could find no evidence the large group of accused men worked together as a group.

The provincial government inquiry was launched to examine the allegations.

Dunlop raised the child sexual abuse allegations in 1993 after discovering what he believed was a cover-up of an abuse case involving a young boy and a church official.

He said he was told not to pursue the matter, but he couldn't let it go and it eventually cost him his job.

Dunlop was once named officer of the year in Cornwall.

"Absolutely there was a pedophile ring in Cornwall," he said in the interview this week.

"You can't suppress the truth. There are victims. The victims will tell the story and the community will tell the story."

Dunlop, who now does home renovations, said he's convinced he did the right thing in 1993 and is even more firm in his belief that refusing to testify Monday at a proceeding he no longer believes in will eventually bring out the truth.

"My family believes me. People who know me, who've been around me all my life, believe me," he said.

"Victims believe me. They trust me. They pour their hearts out to me."

He said he and his wife and three teenage girls moved to Vancouver Island where they lead an essentially quiet life, but the past in Cornwall is always there.

Dunlop's wife, Helen, said she expects the police to arrive at their door one day to come for Perry.

"Perry is the poster child of the cop who did the right thing and they are going to make an example of him," she said.

"This is just the continuation of the cover-up we discovered in 1993."

She said the Ontario government has poured millions of dollars into an inquiry designed to protect the institutional establishment when they should have spent their money on tracking down child abusers.

"The inquiry is a sham as far as we're concerned," she said.

"This is shoot the messenger. They are going to come and arrest him. It won't surprise me if they come down our driveway. He'll be the most decorated person in jail if they send him there."