Leroux warned about false statements 

Cornwall Standard Freeholder 

Tuesday, August 14, 2007 - 08:00

 Terri Saunders 

Local News - A man who has admitted he lied in the past to police was warned by an officer about making false statements at the start of an interview more than 10 years ago. 

Ron Leroux met with two OPP officers at a detachment in Orillia on Feb. 7, 1997 and told them of the sexual abuse he says he suffered at the hands of several priests. 

He also told them about bizarre sexual rituals he witnessed and a "clan" of so-called pedophiles he saw not only meeting together but collectively abusing children. 

In June, Leroux told the Cornwall Public Inquiry he never witnessed the sexual rituals he talks about and removed many names from the "clan" list. Leroux has admitted he made some things up as a way of getting back at his alleged abusers while also suggesting he was coerced by former city cop Perry Dunlop and an attorney named Charles Bourgeois into making statements he knew not to be true. 

But during a videotaped interview in 1997, played at the inquiry Monday, Leroux appeared confident the stories he was telling were the truth and seemed to understand the fact he could be charged with perjury if his statements were found to be false. 

"Do you understand the criminal consequence of making a false statement," asked Det. Const. Cathy Bell. 

"Yes," said Leroux, who goes on to suggest the process of providing evidenced to Bell and one of her colleagues, Det. Const. Dan Anthony, isn't going to be easy. 

"This is going to be very, very hard on me, you know," he said. 

Leroux read from written documents and talked about his childhood, growing up in Cornwall and the sexual abuse he says he suffered at the hands of at least two priests while participating in confession during grade school. 

At one point during the interview, Anthony asked Leroux about how the written statements were created and with a little help from Bourgeois, who was present throughout the interview, it's determined the statements were typed up by a secretary in Bourgeois' office from notes provided by Leroux. 

"What about the original handwritten document?" Bell asked. 

"Trashed it," said Leroux. 

Throughout most of the interview, Leroux appeared calm and confidently provided the two police officers with what he said was his personal knowledge of systematic and collective abuse of children, both in Cornwall and in Florida, at the hands of a number of prominent area men over the course of many years between the mid-1950s and early 1990s. 

On occasion, Leroux appeared to go off on tangents related to a story he was telling, and the officers had to rein him in to keep him on track. 

Leroux frequently laughed while talking about individuals and events, but explained his behaviour to the officers. 

"I gotta stop, stop the bull****, I gotta stop that," Leroux said when he laughed aloud at some of the things he was saying. "It's just that I'm so . . . I've got so much tension and so much stress, okay." 

Leroux rarely seemed upset during the interview, but did become emotional in the beginning when he was relaying information related to the sexual ritual he's since admitted he didn't actually witness. The videotape was played during an in-camera session in order to protect the identities of some individuals whose names are included in a publication ban order issued by Comm. Normand Glaude over the course of the past few months. 

Just before the video tape was played, Glaude suggested testimony from witnesses such as Leroux will most likely wrap by the end of this month, and the commission will begin hearing evidence from institutions sometime in September. 

"I expect witness evidence will be completed by Labour Day," Glaude said. The inquiry will continue today with the completion of the playing of the videotaped statement and the playing of other video and audio recordings of statements given by Leroux in the past. 

Council briefed on Phase 2 

Work on Phase 2 of the Cornwall Public Inquiry is moving ahead at full steam, an official involved in the initiative said Monday. 

Gail Kaneb, a member of Commissioner Normand Glaude's Advisory Panel, told city council the group has held more than 45 community meetings to date as part of the overall goal to move towards healing and reconciliation in the community. 

Through the meetings, Kaneb said a number of ideas have come to light, such as the need for a youth centre in Le Village, a First Response Centre to help victims access the resources they need, and a safe house for men. 

Kaneb said the panel plans on holding neighbourhood meetings in the near future. 

The local official said the panel is doing important work for the community, and the response has been positive. 

"We are on the threshold of positive change," she said. "It's really a chance for all of us to make a difference."

Quiet Day At Cornwall Public Inquiry

Cornwall News AM 1220

August 13, 2007 — It was a quiet day at the Cornwall Public Inquiry. The first day back after more than a month off consisted of lawyers watching video and audio statements. They were analyzing the manner in which current witness Ron Leroux was interviewed in the past. Lawyers will continue to sift through the old tapes tomorrow.