Hearings resume at 09:30 am this morning (Wednesday 22 August 2007) A victim/”alleged” victim with the moniker C-8 will take the stand to commence his testimony. Where this will go remains to be seen. C-8, who was molested by Roman Catholic school teacher Marcel Lalonde and “alleges” he molested by Father Charles MacDonald, was a neighbour to Ken Seguin for a number of years and lived with Ron Leroux for a number of years. He has also rubbed shoulders with Perry Dunlop and in the past allegedly did an about turn and said that Dunlop told him to lie. More on this as testimony unfolds.
Keith Ouellette
I left off yesterday at lunch break with the latest round of mass confusion at the Weave Shed.
Well, it seems that over the lunch break Justice Glaude had a change of heart and decided that the veracity of Keith Ouellette’s allegations about Cornwall police response to his sex abuse allegations were of import after all.
That gave John Callaghan (Cornwall Police Service), who was in the midst conducting his cross-examination of Keith, the green light.
I do believe Callaghan came out second best on this one. After earlier implying that Keith is nothing but a mental misfit who gets ‘fixated” on things and fabricates stories Callaghan got a run for his money.
They can say what they want about Keith Ouellette, but one thing he is not is stupid. Indeed Keith has an extensive vocabulary and seems to be well read and informed in a number of areas. On the stand he was generally very articulate, quick on his feet, displayed remarkable insight into himself, and addressed his troubled past and frequent brushes with the law with unusual candour.
A fool he is not.
The bottom line is that if Callaghan thought he would make Keith look the mental idiot he was sorely mistaken. If he thought he would confuse him and show him to be a blubbering ranting maniac he failed. At times when he pushed, Keith pushed back, Glaude stepped in to chastise and Keith apologized.
I have no idea what Keith’s IQ is, but, after watching him handle himself under Callaghan’s cross-exam, I’d guess it’s right up there. Is he a genius or nigh genius? I think it’s highly possible. And, lest some forget, he is also a man whose allegations of repeated childhood sexual abuse at the hand of a number of men have, it seems, consistently been minimized, disputed or fallen on deaf ears. All that converges to make Keith the man we see today.
Keith is Keith. He’s different. He’s a character. In my view, a likable character.
A few salient points from Keith’s testimony and allegations:
(1) Keith was asked to leave the hearings room twice while Justice Glaude, Callaghan and others argued what testimony is or is not relevant to the mandate.
The first time he was asked to leave Keith’s comment was:
A lot of censoring going on, eh? That’s how it starts.
The second time Keith indicated he wanted to stay. He asked Glaude why he had to leave and surmised it was because Callaghan wanted to discredit him. This time, before his departure he had this to say:
Well, I’d just like to state for the record that a picture is composed of very many … pixels. And if you take one pixel out, you don’t get the whole picture.
(2) Keith testified that in the mid 80s he told two successive Chiefs of police – date wise the second would apparently have been Claude Shaver – that he had been molested by Ken Seguin, Richard Hickerson and others. When nothing was done, he unsuccessfully attempted to set up a third meeting. According to Keith it was some time after the latter that the following incident transpired:
I was approached by two officers minimum and I was brought to the dike. Then I was brought to interview room number two where a desk similar to this desk, only lower, made out of oak, was pushed up against me and pinned my legs up against the wall and my life was threatened. I was told that if I ever opened my mouth again about Ken Seguin, Richard Hickerson and a few other people that I would have two bullets put in my brain.
This entire portion of Keith’s testimony is of course extremely problematic. It doesn’t present as a stellar institution response.
Further to that, if indeed Shaver was told in the mid 80s that Ken Seguin was molesting probationers what does it say for Shaver’s response to allegations of sexual abuse? And what does it say for Shaver’s later response to Dave Silmser’s allegations?
For that matter, given testimony that Shaver partied and socialized with Ken Seguin, what does it say for the persistently renounced allegations of a paedophile ring and cover-up?
Anyway, Callaghan tried understandably and desperately to extricate Claude Shaver from this one. Callaghan tried here to pin something or other on Perry Dunlop. He badgered Keith to say it was Perry who told him that Shaver was the Chief at the time in question. Keith had no idea who told him, and, for what it’s worth, evidence seems to indicate he knew it was Shaver before he met Perry. I have no idea what difference it makes who told Keith when that Shaver was Chief at the time in question. If it’s fact that Shaver was Chief, then he was chief. As far as Keith is concerned it’s irrelevant who it was. The issue for him seems to be solely that he was the Chief of Police failed to him.
(3) Reference was made to a previous statement wherein Keith alleged that while he was an altar boy the priest at St. Theresa’s, a Father Bisaillon, “came up behind me and rubbed himself on me.” The transcript identifies the priest is René Bisaillon, the correct name is Rhéal Bisaillon (ordained 1966).
(4) Testified that in one instance when he was dealing with a Cornwall police officer he was looking for help:
I’m looking for commonsense. I was looking across the board for someone to sit down and use their head instead of their credentials
(5) There was much Callaghan hoopla about Keith’s contact with Perry Dunlop. Keith testified that he was contacted by Perry and initially refused to meet him because he didn’t trust police. Eventually he met Perry – when the Dunlops were packing up their household to get out of Cornwall.
(6) There was also much Callaghan hoopla about Keith’s interactions with Dick Nadeau. Keith testified he gave Dick the statement which was posted on the projecttruth2 website.
(7) Notes apparently penned by Keith reference “Danny boy” and Judge Fitzpatrick. Asked if this is reference to Judge Fitzpatrick who put him on probation with Ken Seguin Keith replied:
Danny boy is one of the victims that Malcolm MacDonald, Judge Fitzpatrick and Guy Jodoin had something to do with and who told me so.
I believe that should perhaps be “Keith” Jodoin?
But, what’s this about? No questions were asked.
Will anyone at the Weave Shed follow through?
(8) Keith claims he was entrapped by an undercover officer:
I spoke to this undercover officer. I asked him if he was an undercover officer. He is obliged by law to answer correctly. He denied he was an undercover officer. That’s entrapment right off the bat.
He then enlisted me into a conversation along with the other people who pretended to be prostitutes, and he was a pimp at a restaurant. I sat down and had coffee with him and that’s when the conversation turned to drugs, and he asked me to get drugs for him, and I complied and I got the drugs for him. I did a favour for him out of the goodness of my heart because that’s the way it was. When I did that a few months later, I was busted for trafficking in hashish.
It seems it was during this interaction that Keith alleges he wanted to buy a firearm “to settle the score with the chief of police” and to defend himself should police come to put two bullets in his head.
Asked if he ever purchased the gun, Keith replied: “I did not. I had a change of heart.”
Hearings are about to start. Must run…
Enough for now,
Sylvia