Silmser poster-boy for child sex abuse fallout

Letters to the Editor

Cornwall Standard-Freeholder

05 February 2007 

First, let me declare my bias right up front. David Silmser is my client, and from my perspective he is a classic tragic hero. 

The tragedy lies in the permanent psychological scars left behind by David's childhood sexual abuse, and more particularly in the deep seated anger that has made his story so difficult to tell. 

Just for a moment, walk a mile in his shoes. 

As an altar boy you are abused by your priest at a time when you are so devout that you want to become a priest. Next, your school teacher and then your probation officer take their turns abusing you. This last abuse occurs when you are a juvenile street urchin caught stealing to stay alive. 

When you finally do heal just enough to come forward with your appalling tale of predation you are not believed. You are instead investigated as if you were the accused, and this continues for years. 

Finally someone else hears about you in the news and finds the nerve to come forward themselves, and then another, and then the dam of silence breaks and the truth comes rushing out. 

More years pass on, and you get dragged through the courts time after time only to see all of the criminal charges against your priest stayed for delay 

Now, are you frustrated by all this? Are you angry? Well, if you aren't, then you aren't human. 

David Silmser is the poster-boy for the real fall-out of childhood sexual abuse; his has been a shattered life lived on the ragged edge of rage. 

David's heroism lies in the fact that if he had not found the courage to come forward this pocket of influential pedophiles would probably never have been exposed. 

Why it took so long for David's story to be taken seriously is the main reason for the Cornwall Inquiry. Victims like David become fragile, defensive and chronically stressed for the rest of their lives. 

They do not take well to telling their painful stories at all, let alone having them dissected yet another time. Does this make David "difficult" and "unco-operative"? Of course it does. But we have come now to understand how this behaviour is the natural side effect of unnatural abuse. 

The only good thing about a mistake is the opportunity to learn from it. 

Investigating how we as a people can better deal with such badly damaged victims in the future is money very well spent, in my humble opinion. 

The next victim who comes forward could be anyone's child, and one would hope that they are treated with far more dignity, understanding and compassion than David Silmser ever was. 

Clinton H. Culic, Fitzpatrick & Culic Brockville, Ontario