I have added a page on Dick Nadeau which is accessible through a link on The Victims page. Within the Dick Nadeau page is a link to Justice Cunningham’s September 2001 “Reasons for Judgement” finding Dick guilty of contempt of court and slapping him with a $1,000 fine.
There is much that could be said about this but for now I will just note that Dick’s troubles with Justice Colin McKinnon began when he questioned McKinnon’s ability to take the bench without bias at the Leduc trial and continued to the day he arrived in a Cornwall courtroom with hard evidence that McKinnon was in a serious conflict of interest.
Now I’ll repeat what I said on the website: that prior to the contempt hearing in Ottawa Dick was advised by his lawyer that the citation would be “purged” if Dick would just go in there and say ‘sorry.’
At the time Dick’s health was failing and he didn’t have the physical, emotional or financial where-with-all to embark on the legal battle which would undoubtedly have ensued had he attempted to fight the citation.
Unfortunately Dick took the advice. But it wasn’t that simple. “I’m sorry” was not going to win the day. Justice J. Douglas Cunningham (now Associate Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice) was having none of Dick’s apologies, there was no defence for Dick, the citation was not purged, Dick was found guilty, Dick was fined $1,000 – and Dick came out looking like a man who fabricated allegations on the fly.
Dick regretted his decision to heed his lawyers’ advice in that instance for the rest of his life. He felt he’d been railroaded. I did too. I was in the courtroom that day.
Enough for now,
Sylvia
(cornwall@theinquiry.ca)