Hearings resumed at 0900 hours (9 am EST) this morning, Monday 24 November 2008.
The schedule for the week is as follows:
Detective Constable Joseph Dupuis – Ontario Provincial Police
Detective Inspector Tim Smith (Retired) – Ontario Provincial Police
Detective Constable Steve Seguin – Ontario Provincial Police
Dupuis’s cross-examination will be completed first. Then Smith will return to continue his testimony.
My weekend took on a mind of its own. A busy and wonderful weekend. Lots of pitter-pattering of little feet :). I managed to get the media articles and transcript posted but no chance to get back at the transcripts to work on this blog until early this morning.
I won’t touch the Shelly Hallett/OPP-Project Truth officers debacle. I really want to try to dig out my notes and transcripts from the Leduc trial, plus I believe Detective Inspector Hall’s testimony and that of other OPP Project Truth officers will fill in a lot of gaps here. The whole dirty mess needs to be packaged together.
A few points then on Joe Dupuis’s testimony:
(1) Detective Inspector Tim Smith headed up the Project Truth probe until 1999. Part of the probe entailed examining allegations of conspiracy/cover-up.
This is the same Tim Smith who headed the OPP investigation in 1994 which had concluded there was no conspiracy. In that instance Smith had decided that there could have no conspiracy without former Chief Claude Shaver’s involvement, and Smith decided that Shaver was honest and that therefore Shaver was not party to any conspiracy and that therefore there could not have been a conspiracy and that therefore there was no need to conduct further interviews regarding conspiracy.
Does this make any sense?
Doers it make an iota of sense to put an officer who concluded ‘no conspiracy’ in 1994 in charge of an investigation into conspiracy allegations?
(2) After he talked to Project Truth officers C-17, an “alleged” victim of Jacques Leduc, received a death threat in the mail. The message read: “You’re dead meat, faggot.”
At that point Leduc was under investigation only, had not been charged, and presumably the word was not out that he was under investigation.
Despite attempts to do so the author of the letter was never identified.
Perhaps also of interest in this regard are a series of ‘coincidences’ during the Project Truth investigation of Leduc.
It seems that (i) while conducting an interview at the home of C-17 Leduc showed up at the residence, and (ii) Leduc phoned while Project Truth officers were interviewing two other witnesses in the Leduc investigation.
Dupuis had apparently prepared a timeline of the Project Truth investigation. It seems the focus of the timeline was on actions taken by the Cornwall Police Service.
As commission counsel Pierre Dumais pointed out:
MR. DUMAIS: …for example, there is nothing in the timeline about the drafting of the actual release; Malcolm MacDonald’s involvement, Jacques Leduc’s involvement, the actions taken by the Crown’s office, actions and knowledge that the Diocese would have had. You agree with me?
Dupuis agreed.
Asked what the purpose of such a timeline would be in a conspiracy investigation, Dupuis could not recall.
(3) At some point Leduc’s former secretary was interviewed.
The question put to her at the time was:
“ What if anything can you tell me about the agreement between the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall and a person by the name of David Silmser?”
Her response:
“I don’t recall his name being on this document. The names would have been added, I believe, at Adam’s office.
The wording or the names, I don’t recall. I don’t know if he drew up the document or someone else did. I don’t remember.”
Several hours after the interview the secretary called Project Truth to advise there was something she had remembered: she had been told to erase the memory on her typewriter.
There was nothing in testimony to indicate that it was Leduc who told her to erase the memory, but I would think that would be the case.
Intriguing indeed!
(4) On 09 August 2001 C-22 (Stuart Labelle), an “alleged” Leduc victim, contacted Dupuis and told him that Jacques Leduc’s wife wanted to meet him the following day.
C-22 Stuart Labelle had not wanted to press charges but had agreed to testify at the Leduc trial.
This contact by Mrs. Leduc with C-22 Stuart Labelle transpired sometime after the first Leduc “trial” and while the appeal was under way.
C-22 Stuart Labelle told Dupuis about the call and wanted to know what he should do. Dupuis allegedly told him it was up to him.
Project Truth set up surveillance. Mrs. Leduc arrived at the meeting spot. C-22 did not. I got the impression that he was perhaps afraid to go.
Dupuis does not recall if he did or did not bring this Mrs. Leduc contact with a witness to the Crown’s attention prior to Leduc’s second “trial.”
(5) Dupuis had apparently prepared a timeline of the Project Truth investigation. It seems the focus of the timeline was almost exclusively on actions taken by the Cornwall Police Service.
As commission counsel Pierre Dumais pointed out:
MR. DUMAIS: …for example, there is nothing in the timeline about the drafting of the actual release; Malcolm MacDonald’s involvement, Jacques Leduc’s involvement, the actions taken by the Crown’s office, actions and knowledge that the Diocese would have had. You agree with me?
Dupuis agreed.
Asked what the purpose of such a timeline as he had prepared would be in a conspiracy investigation, Dupuis could not recall.
(6) Project Truth officers provided individuals lists of questions prior to conducting interviews. This is apparently rather unusual and not usual police procedure. I believe actually at one point Dupuis testified that the questions were presented to police officers but not to laymen interviewed by the team. I looked for that briefly but was unable to hone in on it.
Anyway, it seems that Jacques Leduc, former Chief Claude Shaver, and CPS officers Stuart McDonald and Luc Brunet were in cahoots discussing either the Project Truth questions or the manner in which the questioning was being conducted.
According to Dupuis’ notes, on 27 January 2000 he met with Constable Ron Lefebvre, by then a court security officer.
According to Dallas Lee’s paraphrase of those Dupuis notes:
“Lefebvre was shown the questions we’re asking everyone. He advised that Chief Shaver, Staff Inspector McDonald and Staff Sergeant Brunet, along with Jacques Leduc, had a meeting to discuss this matter”
Strangely Lefebvre’s statement of 29 February 2000 makes no mention of the above meeting:
MR. LEE: What we don’t have anywhere in the statement is any reference to the meeting with Jacques Leduc and the — and Shaver and McDonald and Brunet. Do you recall having any discussion not transcribed here about that meeting?
Dupuis does not recall.
It seems there was no follow up on the Lefebvre information that Shaver, McDonald, Brunet and Leduc met to discuss the questions and/or manner of questioning.
(7 ) At some point a woman identified as C-69 contacted Project Truth with allegations against Father Romeo Major. At that time Major had already been charged. According to notes entered into evidence
“[C-69] went on to say that she was paid $5,000 for treatment and that her good friend, Jacques Leduc, had helped her get that for her. She had been a good friend of Leduc for years. They started school together and after grade school went to grade 13 together at St. Lawrence High School. Leduc had advised her that you could not proceed on any criminal charges due to a limit of two years in the Province of Québec.
Leduc was acting as counsel for the Alexandria-Cornwall Diocese at that time. C-69 was paid by a Diocese from Québec. She had to sign documents that she would never talk about the abuse from unknown priests ever again.
Bishop Larocque also discussed with her that if she ever talked about abuse, he would see that she was fired from her teaching job at the Catholic Separate School Board. C-69 advised that she had disclosed to Jacques Leduc everything that happened to her.”
Dupuis described C-69 as a very fragile person. There was no follow up with Bishop Larocque or Leduc on these allegations. There have been inferences made that C-69 was not a credible witness.
The charges against Major from the one other witness were dropped.
Major died April 2007.
(8) Father Charles MacDonald wrote a note of apology one of his “alleged” victims, C-4, Charlie gave to note to C-4’s brother and asked that it be given to C-4. At the time Charlie presumably told C-4’s brother he was sorry for what had happened. He also said C-4 was of age.
The letter was possibly written by Charlie on the recommend of Bishop Larocque.
Charlie apparently said he could not deliver the note to C-4 in person because of “a restraining order.”
The letter was apparently dated 30 December 1997. Charlie was not charged until end January 1998.
The question of course is was Charlie under a restraining order in late December 1997? Before he was charged?
My thought here is that perhaps it was Larocque rather than police who told Charlie to stay clear of C-4?
Beyond that, I really must ask what is a Roman Catholic priest doing justifying his homosexual contact with anyone, consent or no?
(9) According to Dupuis’ notes of 10 April 2000, Dupuis interviewed Father Charlie and told the priest there was another sex abuse allegation against him.
At the time, according to Dupuis’ notes:
“MacDonald said he knew a police officer he could trust, so he was going to call him, ask him what he should do re court.”
There was no follow up on this. No attempt by Project Truth officers to learn who the officer was in whom Charlie had such trust.
And these Project Truth officers were supposed to investigating allegations of conspiracy and cover-up?
And concluded there was no such beast?
As I’ve said before, I’m finding all of this awfully hard to stomach 🙁
Enough for now,
Sylvia