Hearings resume at 09:30 am tomorrow (Thursday, 20 September 2007). Helen Dunlop returns to the stand for cross-examination. Helen against the pride.
I expect the cross-examine will be gruelling and merciless. The Dunlops, after all, are no friends of the disproportionate number of parties with standing who view the pair as public enemy number one. Most if not all those parties have a vested interest in protecting their clients’ best interests by painting Perry Dunlop as a rogue lying cop who twisted arms to encourage “alleged” victims to lie, doctored affidavits and made life a living Hell for innocent men, the latter being such as “alleged” molester Father Charles MacDonald.
True enough, Helen is not Perry. But, she’s a Dunlop. She’s Perry’s wife. And she cooked spaghetti, baked cookies, offered support to “alleged” victims and their families and stood stalwartly by her husband.
Helen’s the next best thing to Perry. She may indeed be as close as this pride of lions can get to having Perry Dunlop for dinner.
So, if those in the pride can’t sink their teeth into Perry, well, yes …there’s Helen.
I suspect that right at this very moment a goodly number of the pride are chomping at the bit and salivating. I can almost see them labouring into the wee small hours, stalking their prey – pouring through transcripts, looking for one more thing to twist here, another to spin there; extrapolating another few words here, another paragraph or two there; finding some novel way to spin this or crafty means to misrepresent that.
The legal phone lines must be burning, the blackberries and emails running full tilt. So much for the pride to get in order, i.e., (1) Who’s going to open the door on the this little bit of sandbagging, and who on that one? (2) Which of the pack will be tasked with moving in for the final kill on what? (3) Would it be politically incorrect for lawyers of the male gender to pounce on a female? (4) Should some of the really dirty work be assigned to the females of the pride? (4) What topics to tag team? and (5) Should Bishop Durocher, a Roman Catholic bishop, risk public scorn by weighing in on the kill?
So much for the pride to think about. So much to do. Busy, busy, busy.
I found myself watching the pride today. There they were, text messaging like mad amidst Helen’s often tearful testimony. Clicking away at their keyboards. Busy, busy, busy. Stalking. Ears perked. On the alert.
I couldn’t help but wonder if there is such a thing as a conscience within the pride. Indeed, as Helen recounted the years of torment she and her family have lived since Perry first blew the whistle, and tearfully described the toll this has taken on their girls, I looked in vain for some small sign of discomfort a d/or embarrassment within the pride.
I saw none. Perhaps I missed it?
Or, perhaps coliseum duty is just a job? And perhaps it is a prequisite that all worthy members of the pride must check their conscience at the coliseum door?
Is that it? Just a job – a well paying job at that, but, just a job? Is it just that the pride at the coliseum does what all good prides do? Conscience has nothing to do with it?.
Anyway, a few observations and comments on the days events:
(1) Justice Norman Glaude chastised Helen for not answering a question to suit his liking. He actually told her how she should have answered.
This is a “public” inquiry? And the commissioner is now dictating how witnesses should answer questions?
Where do we live? Is this the Gulag? If not, where? And how but how did we get here?
(2) There was testimony surrounding the death threats against the Dunlop’s daughter Marlee when the child was six-years of age.
According to Helen’s testimony it seems the Cornwall Police Service’s response to death threats against a Dunlop child was as stellar as it was to various allegations of childhood sexual abuse.
Remarkable. More on this after I get home.
(3) There was testimony surrounding the other death threats against the entire Dunlop family. These are different than those referenced above and relate to the allegations of a paedophile ring and cover-up.
It seems it took an eternity for these threats to be investigated. I’ll check this all out when I get home and have time. But, the bottom line here is that at the end of the day Crown attorney Robert Pelletier casually informed the Dunlops that it would not be in the public interest to lay charges!
That was that.
(4) I can not begin to fathom what this family has endured for blowing the whistle on “alleged” child molesters. I knew a certain amount about those years, but there’s an awful lot I didn’t know.
Helen had to fight to regain her composure several times as she recalled the loss of friends, the divided family, financial hardships, the emotional and mental impact on Perry, the emotional and mental impact on herself, the need to finally get out of Cornwall and as far as away as possible, and, for Helen, the really tender spot, the terrible toll it took on the childhoods of their three little girls.
Helen’s pain was palpable. The persecution for daring to expose the community’s dark underbelly intense.
(5) Was it just me? Was Justice Glaude sort of gunning for Helen? It seemed that way to me. Hope I was mistaken.
(6) The air in the coliseum is charged. Everyone feels it.
(7) Strange how lawyers are allowed to collude or conspire or whatever you want to call it when they put their heads together to go after a witness.
(8) Seems the buzz around the community is that the “inquiry” is a sham.
(9) Any number of people about town say they couldn’t hack going into the Weave Shed/coliseum. They just don’t think they could take it. Some are afraid they wouldn’t be able to contain themselves, ….others are just plain afraid.
(10) This reminds me of the Project Truth sex abuse trials. Everyone’s watching everyone’s every move and contact.
Pray up a storm for Helen and Perry today. Lots of prayers. More than ever.
And get down to the Weave Shed. Two brave souls with a conscience who fought for our children need our support and encouragement.
I am going to try posting some of the recent media articles and hope my maching doesn’t go into crash mode again. I plan to cheat a little to try to circumvent a lengthy night by putting all articles on one page – just while I’m here in Cornwall. I will post the link on New to Site.
Enough for now,
Sylvia
(cornwall@theinquiry.ca)