Little witches and goblins and ghosts and fairy princesses were around Trick or Treating last evening. There weren’t too many on or doorstep, but none the less we were on standby, husband ever-ready to don his monster mask and me to dip into the candy pot.
Now into November and the wind is howling outside. Cold.
Christmas just around the corner. Hard to believe.
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Hearings resume at 0930 hours (9:30 am) this morning, Thursday, 01 November 2007. Carmen’s examination and chief will continue. Then it’s over to the pack.
Julian Fantino, commissioner for the Ontario Provincial Police is also scheduled to testify tomorrow. I can’t see how they’re going to wrap up with both Carmen and Fantino in one day, but stranger things have happened in the Weave Shed courthouse. We’ll have to wait and see.
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Eighty documents were entered into evidence for the commission’s ODE to Dick, Eighty!! That tells a little something about Dick. He was one busy fellow.
The ODE (Overview of Documentary Evidence) was essentially a chronology of Dick’s comings and goings from the time he started addressing his own sexual abuse until his untimely but not unexpected death in April 2006. I want to copy and post a lot of that. The commission is in recess next week so I have lots of time 🙂
Carmen is holding up like a trooper. She is testifying in French which means we rely on translation and lose intonation and so on, but it sounds as though she is faring just fine.
I haven’t been able to get down to Cornwall at all for Carmen’s testimony. I would dearly love to go and in fact it’s killing me not to be there. Over the years Carmen has become a very dear friend. I can’t believe that right now of all times I should be so thoroughly grounded. But, sometimes things just don’t work as we’d like and this alas is one of those times.
Several quick points from Carmen’s testimony:
(1) Carmen had no problem standing behind what Dick had been doing with the projecttruth2 website. She said that was the victim’s only voice, especially with Perry gone.
(2) Dick was not by any means technologically literate. Carmen therefore did all the postings on the website. Dick did the writing and made all the decisions regarding content. Carmen took Dick’s work and posted it. As those who work with websites know, that can take a lot of time and energy.
(3) Asked if Dick believed in “broadcasting” the information he had on hand Carmen replied “If he didn’t believe in it he wouldn’t have done it.”
(4) Dick had no “meanness” in him. He never did anything out of spite.
(5) Dick was happy when Bishop Larocque and several priests from the diocese sued him. He said ‘finally we’ll go before the court.” Carmen said she didn’t get it, but Dick was pleased. She said she understood afterwards why he was so pleased. As yet she has not been asked to explain that latter comment.
(6) Dick’s health was poor. He had had triple by-pass surgery, he was diabetic and, by the time of the Leduc sex abuse trial in 2001 his heart was functioning at 20% capacity. According to Carmen Dick was preoccupied with the website and Cornwall. She testified that the Leduc trial really brought him down.
(7) Dick was always an activist, always fighting for the other guy. He never took care of himself.
(8) At the start of the Leduc trial Justice McKinnon issued a publication ban of some kind. Dick was in the courtroom at the time. When he got home Dick wrote a word or two on what had happened in court that day, including the following. The next day he was summonsed to the court reprimanded.
Commission counsel Pierre Dumais read out what had been said regarding bans. When Dumais was finished Carmen’s basic observation was: ‘Well you can see why we didn’t understand a darn word. That’s all jargon between lawyers.’ Then she added that she still didn’t understand what it meant when it was read out to her yesterday! I’ll have to see if I can pick that out of the transcript. It’s hard to do when it’s French and there’s no translation of the transcript.
Carmen was pleasant, calm and collected. Dick would be proud.
Finally, I posted a letter Dick e-mailed to Len Hooper at the Cornwall Standard Freeholder in February 2000. It’s quite a letter – Dick recounting, struggling to understand and come to terms with his sexual abuse, and obviously deeply impacted and moved by recent conversations with other sex abuse victims from the Cornwall Classical College. He literally pours out his heart and soul.
May he rest in peace.
Enough for now,
Sylvia
RE: Signature of Dick Nadeau (a co-defendant), written by “Plaintiff’s Lawyer, David Sherriff-Scott” on a “very critical” legal, civil litigation document; a civil litigation that Carmen testified to yesterday, that, she never knew Dick had “settled or signed off” on and that she believed was still ongoing to this day, (October 31, 2007.)
During Carmen’s testimony on October 31, 2007, she was confronted with questions surrounding a civil litigation Dick was involved with, wherein, he was one of several co-defendants. Carmen was presented a “purported” legal document, “allegedly”, disclosing that, Dick had agreed to have the litigation against him withdrawn, in exchange for his silence and agreement not to re-publish on website(s)or other.
After reading the document, Carmen challenged “the Inquiry” on the fact the signature being represented on the document as being Dick Nadeau’s was not Dick Nadeau’s.
After discussion, it was concluded by Commissioner Glaude, that, the Plaintiff’s lawyer had signed Dick Nadeau’s name.
MY COMMENT:
I think it’s quite important that Carmen ask Commissioner Glaude or Commission Counsel, to see where authorization from Dick Nadeau or his lawyer (time dated), was given to Mr. Sherriff-Scott, the Plaintiff’s Lawyer, which permitted Mr. Sherriff-Scott, to sign Dick Nadeau’s name on the “puported” legal documentation.
Carmen must not accept the “old reliable,” “lawyer’s do this all the time, it’s common prectice, etc., etc.”
WRONG!! There MUST be agreement and written acknowledgement ALL THE TIME!!
I say “purported” because as a result of my experiences as a plaintiff and defendant in various civil litigations, I believe it is common practice for lawyer’s to send documents to people (laymen), which “suggests” the reader believe the document is “official”, or has been “filed” in a court or agreed upon between the “parties”, but, in reality, none of the aforementioned had taken place. In fact, I had received documents from lawyer’s “purporting” one thing, when in reality and after I had checked with the court records department, discovered, similar documents did not exist, in the court.
I believe it’s a method used by lawyers to control, intimidate and coerce, “parties”, in an “action”.
CARMEN should request, or Commissioner Glaude should request to see and enter into the record, proof of the, who, what where when why and how, relating to the “alleged” sign-off of Dick Nadeau and the authorization, allegedly given to David Sherriff-Scott.