Man says he was sexually abused by high school teacher

Cornwall Standard-Freeholder 

Friday, February 09, 2007 - 10:00 

Terri Saunders 

Local News - It was the mid-1970s when a single act set in motion a series of difficult events for a city man. 

He was attending high school at Ecole Secondaire La Citadelle and found himself being taught photography by Robert Sabourin, one of the school's teachers. 

At one point when he was around 14 or 15, the man was in a car with the teacher when he was offered something hardly any boy his age could resist. 

"He asked me if I wanted to drive," the man told the Cornwall Public Inquiry Thursday. "I said, 'Sure.'"

The two switched places and before long they were going down the road. But the joy at being behind the wheel of a car quickly faded when Sabourin got too close. 

"He said he was worried about us having an accident, so he put his hand on the bottom part of the steering wheel," the man said. "He was touching my thigh. 

"That's when I said it was too dangerous and I stopped driving." 

The man, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, testified during an in-camera hearing Thursday. 

The public were excluded from the room and the Internet broadcast of proceedings was suspended as the man told his story of two encounters with Sabourin. 

The inquiry has already heard from two other men who were abused by the teacher who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a number of young people and was sentenced in April 1999 to two years less one day in jail.

It was not too long after the car ride with Sabourin another incident occurred, the man told the commission. After finding photographic negatives in a garbage can in the school's photography lab in which the young teenager was naked, the teacher made a deal with his student. 

Also on the roll of film were photos of the boy's mother and Sabourin suggested if the negatives got into the wrong hands, the boy's mother might be questioned about the naked pictures of her son. 

"He said he could see my penis (in the photographs) and then he asked if he could see it," said the man. "It didn't leave me much of a choice." 

The man said Sabourin masturbated him then gave him $2 and told him not to tell anyone.

But the man says he did eventually tell school authorities and a priest. 

He said the school authorities asked him if he was willing to testify in court about what happened and when he said he wasn't, he was told the matter could go no further. 

In speaking with the priest, the man said he felt as if he were the one who'd done something wrong.

"(The priest) asked me specifics of what had happened," the man said. "He said Robert Sabourin had not hurt me and if I told anyone it would ruin 'a good man's reputation.'" 

The man said he did eventually speak with police about the incidents and he did receive a financial settlement in regards to the abuse. 

"I guess I was trying to put it behind me," said the man.

The man's testimony is expected to continue when the inquiry resumes Feb. 19