Countdown…
Four days!
Monday 17 September 2007 at 1 pm Perry and Helen Dunlop will be led into the Cornwall Weave Shed, coliseum, COURT, on Helen’s Birthday.
After repeated commission assurances that they would never be forced to testify against their will the Dunlops were summarily summonsed by the Supreme Court of British Columbia. Failure to oblige would constitute contempt of court …and jail.
They have not retained a lawyer. They intend to fend for themselves. Helen says they have done nothing wrong and have no need of a lawyer. My thought is where does one find, as Justice Glaude would say, a “damn good” lawyer?
That, I suppose, is another matter.
The Dunlops, as most are aware, wanted nothing to do with this particular inquiry. They did not want to participate and had their reasons for taking that stand.
Now they are being forced to participate. Indeed, according to Helen she and Perry have been “forced, lied to, bullied and harassed” to attend.
Need it be said that Justice Normand Glaude’s strong-arm legal tactic has caused untold grief in the tightly knit family? The Dunlop girls, now aged 15, 16 and 17, have spent most of their childhood years watching their Daddy being publicly humiliated and vilified. They’ve been subjected to death threats. I could go on and on. The bottom line is what those girls have lived defies imagination.
It’s not the sort of thing the average little girl grows up with.
How does one explain to a child that people are saying bad things about their Daddy because he tried to protect children from sexual predators? How? Without destroying their faith in humanity?
Now this. . . .
Not just Daddy. Mommy and Daddy.
How do you tell a teenager that the judge has changed his mind? that Mommy and Daddy have to leave them and go to Cornwall – or else?! Does anyone know how to deal with that? How do you explain that Mommy and Daddy could be put in jail – for trying to defend children? How do you explain that Mommy and Daddy could be put in jail because they didn’t want to see children put or left at risk? How? Without destroying what faith a child may have left in “the system”?
Are the girls afraid? Under the circumstances, I think that’s a redundant question.
Bewildered? Redundant.
Are there tears? Redundant.
“I don’t thank them for taking me away from my children.” That’s Helen. Worried sick about her children. A mother hen. A good mom.
My heart aches for them all.
Helen says they have been “forced, lied to, bullied and harassed” to appear at the Weave Shed. When the time comes, she will elaborate.
Meanwhile, and in that vein, I have a number of pertinent documents scanned. I will start posting them with commentary throughout the day. A final commentary when they’re all up.
Another ruckus in the offing at the Weave Shed. This one at the expense of both the victims and the Dunlops.
Seems the law firm which represents the Victims Group, Ledroit Beckett, had breif prior dealings with the Dunlops in 2005 before the inquiry began. Now that the Dunlops are being called Ledroit Beckett is in a conflict of interest situation and therefore unable to cross-examine or take any postion while Perry and Helen are on the stand.
That leaves one – one – party at the Weave Shed which might be anxious to elicit information from the Dunlops which needs to get out into the public domain rather than be covered-up. I suppose it also leaves the Coalition. The problem there of course is that the Coalition literally just received Standing and it’s lawyer Frank Horn will be hard-pressed to come close to wrapping his head around the ins and outs and ups and downs of the Cornwall sex abuse scandal and cover-up suffice to conduct a decent cross-examination.
A disaster!! If it all didn’t seem to be kosher I’d swear it was orchestrated. Friendly faces amidst the gathered throng will be sorely lacking. Those who are out to hang them and hang them own and operate the playing field.
Unbelievable. How often have I said these words in the past few months?
Anyway, the members of the Victims Group have been notified. Those who want to have a say while the Dunlops are on the stand must now try to find a lawyer. They had yesterday, today and tomorrow. That’s it!
Apparently this is all happening at the 11th hour because lead commission counsel Peter Engelmann continually told the parties that the Dunlops had been asked to testify, did not want to testify and could not be forced to testify. Presumably as long as the Dunlops were not going to make an appearance at the Weave Shed COURT the matter of their brief – very brief – prior legal dealing with Ledroit Beckett was a non-issue. That all changed on Monday (10 September 2007). It was allegedly then, and only then, that Ledroit Beckett learned that Justice Glaude had secured an interprovincial subpoean and the Dunlops would be testifying in a week.
I am speechless again. This is absolutely unbelievable!!!
What next? I dare not speculate
No hearings today. Nothing until Monday. Monday, 1 pm. Monday, 17 September 2007. Helen’s Birthday. When court resumes at the Weave Shed.
I see there is a problem with the way the previous blog shows. I’ll get to work fixing it up.
Enough for now,
Sylvia