Suspension not considered: O'Brien

CORNWALL PUBLIC INQUIRY

Cornwall Standard Freeholder

22 October 2008

Posted By TREVOR PRITCHARD

The former executive director of the Children's Aid Society never considered suspending an employee accused of physically and sexually abusing children at a group home in the 1970s, the Cornwall Public Inquiry heard Wednesday.

Thomas O'Brien testified that he let Bryan Keough continue to oversee foster homes while Cornwall police investigated the allegations of former CAS ward Jeannette Antoine because he didn't feel there was a chance that other children were at risk.

"He would have no way of disciplining those children. That would have been the responsibility of the foster parents, not Mr. Keough," said O'Brien, who ran the local CAS branch from 1966 until 1990.

The inquiry is exploring how institutions like the CAS handled allegations of historical sexual abuse.

In 1976, staff at the agency's Second Street group home all resigned after some of the children staying there brought forward allegations of demeaning physical abuse to the CAS.

Keough was not a permanent employee at the home. However, O'Brien told the inquiry Wednesday he would often help out there because he was friends with Derry Tenger, the home's director.

"Mr. Keough and Mr. Tenger had the same attitude about physical punishment," said O'Brien. "They were much more rigid than I was (about) how you could properly discipline a child."

Thirteen years later, in August 1989, the group home allegations again ended up on the CAS's radar.

That summer, Antoine told agency caseworkers about the widespread physical and sexual abuse she saw while she was at the home. When she testified at the inquiry in 2006, Antoine singled out Keough as one of the main perpetrators of the abuse, which included forcing teenage girls to scrub floors wearing only their underwear.

O'Brien spoke once with Antoine about her accusations in August 1989.

According to his notes, Antoine was "specific about her dislike for Bryan Keough" during the phone call, and wondered why the CAS would still be employing Keough "after the way he had treated the children."

O'Brien told commission counsel Pierre Dumais that he wanted to speak again with Antoine, to get more information, but never succeeded in reaching her.

While he informed both Cornwall police and the Crown attorney's office of the allegations, O'Brien said he never suspended or disciplined Keough.

"I know that I was in a quandary as to what the law would say," said O'Brien. "And that's why I involved myself with the Crown attorney and the deputy chief of police."

When pressed, O'Brien admitted that had the allegations been made against a non-CAS employee, the agency "probably" would have probed deeper.

Inquiry commissioner Normand Glaude wanted to know why that didn't happen.

"There was a lot of uncertainty," said O'Brien. "I'm not excusing my actions.

"I wasn't sure what to do."

Police investigated Antoine's allegations twice, but never laid any charges.

 Keough denied assaulting children at the group home when he took the stand earlier this month.

Under cross-examination, O'Brien told Citizens for Community Renewal lawyer Helen Daley that although he did not agree with the use of corporal punishment in foster homes or by CAS workers, the agency had no written policy forbidding it.

O'Brien told Daley while it was possible Antoine's allegations of physical punishment at Keough's hands were true, he had trouble believing the alleged sexual abuse.

Prior to yesterday's hearing, there had been concerns from lawyers that O'Brien - who testified Wednesday while hooked up to an oxygen machine - would be too ill to complete his cross-examination.

Those fears seemed to abate yesterday after O'Brien, in his mid-70s, spent almost the entire day on the stand, appearing eager to wrap up his testimony as quickly as possible.

 O'Brien is scheduled to continue testifying when the inquiry resumes this morning.

I guarantee you if it had been reported that I or any other member of the public had been reported to have been abusing children that they would have investigated us but no not this guy because he is a member of the staff of the group home so essentially an employee of the CAS. These people have way too much power and no one watches them to see if they are doing what is right for the children.