CAS exec went easy on accused worker 

Ottawa Sun 

23 October 2008  

By SUN MEDIA

Thomas O'Brien testified he let Bryan Keough continue to oversee foster homes while 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 city's CAS branch from 1966 until 1990.   

The long-running Cornwall public inquiry is exploring how institutions like the CAS handled allegations of historical sexual abuse.  

In 1976, staff at a Cornwall group home all resigned after some of the children staying there brought forward allegations of demeaning physical abuse to the CAS.  

HOME ON RADAR   

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 abuse that 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 he wanted to speak again with Antoine, but never succeeded in reaching her.

While he informed both Cornwall police and the local Crown attorney's office of the allegations, O'Brien said he never 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."

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.