Lawyer unsure if Silmser will return 

Cornwall Standard Freeholder 

Terri Saunders 

Saturday, February 03, 2007 - 10:00 

Front Page - CORNWALL - Whether David Silmser will return to the witness stand at the Cornwall Public Inquiry Monday is anybody's guess, his lawyer said Friday. 

"My guess is as good as anybody else's," said Clint Culic. "I really have no idea." 

Culic said he has worked with commission staff to get Silmser and his wife into some form of therapy after Silmser left the witness stand Thursday. 

An attorney for Rev. Charles MacDonald, a city priest whom Silmser says sexually assaulted him when he was a young altar boy in the late 1960s and early 1970s, had only just begun to cross-examine Silmser when he stood up and announced he needed a break. 

Culic told the commission at the time his client was suffering from anxiety and could not return to the stand Friday. 

It was his hope then, and remains his hope, Silmser will continue next week. 

"I believe there will only be a limited amount of effectiveness coming out of this therapy," said Culic from his Brockville office Friday. "Dave has been in therapy for years and I don't know if this new therapy will do much to help him." 

Culic said his client had trouble being questioned by someone representing the person Silmser says abused him as a child. 

MAKING FUN 

"Not only is he looking up and seeing his (alleged abuser) standing there, his (alleged) abuser is ridiculing him and making fun of him," said Culic. 

"And the worst part is, given what happened Thursday, there may be other lawyers in the room who will now see David as a weak, limping gazelle around a water hole. 

"They may attack him because it appears it's easy to do." 

Silmser is considered a key witness at the inquiry. In 1993, he received a $32,000 payment from the Alexandria-Cornwall Roman Catholic Diocese in exchange for a promise not to pursue criminal charges against MacDonald. 

Silmser's testimony is crucial to the inquiry's mandate, said Dallas Lee, an attorney representing The Victims Group at the commission, and he would like to see it continue. 

"If it wasn't for him (Silmser) coming forward all those years ago, and if it wasn't for his refusal to let this die, we wouldn't be here in an inquiry today," said Lee. 

"It's because he agreed to that settlement - something he says he did in order to perhaps spark some form of internal investigation with the diocese - that the information ended up in a police file which (former city cop) Perry Dunlop stumbled upon and handed over to authorities." 

MacDonald, who has adamantly denied the allegations in the past, had sex-related criminal charges against him stayed by a judge in May 2002 after it was determined it took too long to bring the matter before the courts. 

The inquiry will resume Monday at 2 p.m.