Cornwall Standard Freeholder  

25 February 2009

Posted By TREVOR PRITCHARD

Staff at the city's probation office should not be faulted for failing to realize former probation officer Ken Seguin might have been sexually abusing children, lawyers argued Tuesday.

Seguin's reputation as being "Mr. Probation" was one reason why allegations of sexual abuse didn't surface until after his 1993 suicide, said David Rose, a lawyer for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services.

"People weren't looking at him very closely all the time, scrutinizing him, because he had this reputation," Rose said.

The ministry was one of four parties that delivered final submissions at the Cornwall Public Inquiry yesterday.

Seguin was never charged with sexual abuse crimes.

 However, after his death, the ministry received more than 20 abuse-related complaints involving him.

WRITTEN SUBMISSION

In their written submissions, the ministry argued that city staff saw Seguin's close ties with his clients not as evidence that he was trying to take advantage of them, but rather that he was "going above and beyond" to provide help.

Rose pointed out that staff informed the office's manager, Emile Robert, of two questionable incidents involving Seguin.

On one occasion, Seguin gave alcohol to a probationer who showed up at his Summerstown home.

That second probationer later said he was sexually abused by Seguin.

Rose said that Robert showed "an element of favouritism" towards Seguin in his lax handling of those situations.

Rose also said that when Carole Hesse - a close confidant of Seguin -took the stand at the inquiry, she testified she would have "clocked him on the nose" had she ever thought he was sexually abusing his probationers.

Seguin kept his homosexuality from almost everyone, even his brother Doug, Rose added.

 "The local staff didn't know any more than Carole Hesse knew or Doug Seguin knew," said Rose.

Fellow ministry lawyer Joseph Neuberger said staff were "mortified" when they began receiving allegations against Seguin.

Had the local employees wanted to turn a blind eye to the allegations against Seguin and Nelson Barque, another probation officer who had worked at the Cornwall office, they wouldn't have crafted a protocol to deal with abuse disclosures, as they did in the late 1990s, Neuberger said.

"They did not duck and hide from this, but dealt with it straight on," said Neuberger.

How as a probation offer could you give alcohol to someone on probation at his own home as well as rent a room to another and his immediate boss knew about it and just wrote him up, that should have been a wake up call for his immediatre boss.Someone was asleep on this one. 

Very well said majekin!!

"If you are a VICTIM SPEAK OUT LOUD AND CLEAR - HIRE A LAWYER, YOU HAVE RIGHTS"