SQLFusion - Cornwall Public Inquiry wintess tells story of sexual abuse

Silmser tells story of abuse to cop following traffic stop
Cornwall Standard Freeholder
Terri Saunders
Monday, February 05, 2007 - 10:00
Local News - In 1992, David Silmser got pulled over by a police officer just north of the city of Cornwall.
There was a suspicion Silmser had been drinking and so the Ontario Provincial Police constable took him to the Long Sault detachment for a breathalyzer.
Once the two men were inside the station, Silmser began to talk about his life in the hopes the police officer would understand why things were going for the 34-year-man the way they were.
Many years earlier, Silmser told the police officer, when he was just a young boy of about 11 years old, a city priest had begun to sexually abuse him and would do so on several occasions.
Silmser said the abuse was to blame for the fact his life had spiralled out of control.
"I have to get my life together," Silmser told the cop. "This is why my life is screwed up."
Silmser would tell the officer he was struggling to come to terms with what had happened to him as a young boy, but he wasn't having much luck.
"I just . . . I can't get over it," Silmser told the officer. "I can't get my life over that hurdle."
Silmser's story dominated testimony at the Cornwall Public Inquiry last week. For the most part, the man was sturdy and confident as he opened up a door on the most painful chapter in his life.
Over the course of more than three days, Silmser took the commission on a detailed trip through his pre-teen and adolescent years when he says he was sexually abused by Rev. Charles MacDonald, a Catholic school teacher named Marcel Lalonde and a probation officer named Ken Seguin.
MacDonald was charged with numerous sex offences involving young boys in 1996 by the OPP's Project Truth team, allegations he has adamantly denied.
In May 2002, a judge stayed all the charges after it was decided it had taken too long to bring the matter before the courts.
Lalonde was sentenced in 2001 to 15 months in jail and a combined one year of house arrest after being found guilty of sexually assaulting several young boys. Although Silmser told police he had been abused by Lalonde, his allegations were not used to form the charges on which the teacher was convicted.
Seguin was never charged criminally in relation to sexual abuse allegations against him. He committed suicide in November 1993.
That conversation with the OPP officer in 1992 would be one of the first times Silmser would tell his story, but it certainly wouldn't be the last. Ever since, he has been known as the first in a long line of victims and alleged victims of child sexual abuse to come forward as adults and demand justice for the trauma they suffered as kids.
For Silmser, even though he was almost always referred to by his initials D.S., the media coverage of the scandal over the past 15 years has been tough to handle as he plodded through a series of police interviews, Children's Aid Society investigations and court appearances.
On more than one occasion Silmser had to recall in detail locations, dates and particulars regarding the abuse. Although he didn't get into specifics at the inquiry this week, a number of documents filed with the commission include allegations MacDonald sexually assaulted Silmser in the sacristy room at St. Columban's church, at a church retreat in St. Andrew's, in an office at St. Columban's Church and during a ride in MacDonald's car.
Silmser's claims also include allegations he was assaulted by Lalonde, one of his teachers at Bishop McDonell School, and by Seguin, a probation officer he was assigned to after he was convicted of stealing as a teenager. Silmser told the inquiry his life was going great before the abuse began. He says his grades were good, he had a good relationship with his family and his future was bright.
All of that changed when the assaults started, he said, and his life's path turned into a downward spiral.
"I was just mixed up. I was very, very insecure. I couldn't face anybody," he said. "Actually, people asked me why did I walk around with my head tucked down all the time. Because I was ashamed of myself. I was ashamed of what had happened, and I couldn't face anybody.
So that's why I couldn't talk to anybody and that's why I ended up living on the streets."
It would be decades before Silmser would find some stability in his life.
Thanks to years of therapy and the support of his wife, he's finally beginning to come out from under the dark cloud, although it's still not easy.
"I wasn't a well person still (in the late 1980s) but she (his wife) is a very understanding person and she got me through the hard times," he said.
Silmser said things got particularly difficult in the early 1990s when he began to tell people about the abuse. The ensuing court proceedings and publicity made for some tough times.
"All the stress involved, all the . . . just the depression I went through," he said. "I'm getting better now, it is just counselling. I had to go through a lot of counselling. But back then . . . and still today, I still have anger problems."
A continuing difficulty dealing with anxiety and anger appear to have been behind Silmser's unexpected departure from the witness stand early into testimony Thursday morning. Both a child abuse expert and Silmser's lawyer say it's obvious he was reacting to being questioned by a lawyer representing MacDonald at the hearings. "He doesn't see a lawyer standing there; he sees his (alleged) abuser standing there," said Clint Culic, a Brockville-area attorney representing Silmser at the inquiry. "It's not surprising he did what he did."
Culic said it's also likely Silmser is dealing with the frustration of having gone through years of legal hurdles only to watch his alleged abuser go home at the end of the day.
"He (MacDonald) had never faced a hearing on the merits of the charges against him," said Culic. "The criminal matters never got that far. And that can be really frustrating for the person who made the allegations which resulted in the charges being laid."
During the more than three days Silmser spent on the witness stand, he often spoke about the one thing he always wanted out of all this, and the one thing he never did get.
"I thought when I came forward and told the abuses to the Catholic Church, that they would do something about it, even give me an apology, the only thing I asked for in the first place," Silmser said. "But they were the first ones to cover it up. They are the first ones to try and keep my mouth shut on this thing."
Silmser said the church's refusal to apologize in part set in motion a series of events which have lasted for 15 years.
"From that day on, it has just been one frustration after another," he said. "This whole thing took (on) a life of its own. And it's not
because I was prompting it. I actually sat at home and did nothing and this thing just exploded with media coverage, telling the wrong stories in the media; the police handling things in a terrible way many times; Crown attorneys where they did not believe a word I said, even though when I wrote my statement out it came back 100 per cent truthful when they had a professional analyze it."
Silmser said he felt powerless to do anything as the allegations he'd made against three prominent people were being ignored.
"The Crown attorney wouldn't lay charges," he said. "(Cornwall Police Service Const.) Heidi Sebalj at the time said, 'We can't lay charges because the Crown doesn't want to go ahead with it.' So my hands were tied. It was just one frustration after another."
The inquiry will resume today and Silmser is scheduled to return to the witness stand.
Over the weekend, it was expected he was going to be offered some form of counselling in the hopes he might be able to finish telling the story which has never been told in its entirety and in Silmser's own words.
If Silmser can't continue, commission staff have said, the inquiry will go on to hear from other scheduled witnesses.
Comm. Normand Glaude said the intent is to treat everyone who comes before the inquiry with dignity and respect and he wanted to make sure nobody made any assumptions about Silmser or his evidence based on Thursday's turn of events.
"I don't know that anything untoward should be taken by what occurred, either by Mr. Silmser's demeanour or his comments," said Glaude. "I think it's a question of . . . being sensitive and understanding the needs of all the parties here in this inquiry."
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