Cornwall Standard Freeholder

16 January 2010

Posted By STAFF

A retired Ecole Secondaire La Citadelle teacher charged with sexually abusing a former student pled guilty Friday.

Robert Sabourin, 84, was sentenced to serve a conditional sentence of two years less a day for charges of indecent assault on a male and gross indecency laid in September 2007.

The victim was between 14 and 18 at the time of the alleged assaults, which would have taken place between September 1974 and June 1978.

As he read a statement discussing the impact of the abuse in court before Justice Johanne Lafrance-Cardinal, entirely in French, the victim choked backed tears and then cried during a statement made by Sabourin.

Sabourin was previously convicted in 1999 on charges he had sexually abused four boys between the ages of 12 and 14 three decades earlier.

The former photography and art teacher was sentenced to two years less a day in jail in that case as well.

Two of Sabourin's four victims from that trial testified at the Cornwall Public Inquiry about how their lives were changed by the abuse. Sabourin will serve his two-year sentence under house arrest.

Public servants are put in a place of trust and must uphold a higher degree of standard. Its difficult to screen for preditors, but peer monitoring can help. Just my 2 cents.....

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Post #1 By nonbeliever

Nonbeliever you suggest peer monitoring, but the question is of WHO?. This is the second time that this self proclaimed pedohile gets sentenced and yet he will not serve a single day in jail. Both times he was sentenced to house arrest by the judge. So your suggestion ought to be aimed at the judges who should be sentencing these admitted pedophiles to harsher sentences. The judge is a public servant and he is put in place to uphold the law.

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Post #2 By wildone,

I remember hearing about him then, I was in high school during those years.

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Post #3 By junglelord,