There is a motion to be heard in the Father Michael Fallona csb civil action this morning in London, Ontario. 10 am. London courthouse. Because it is a motion to be held in motions court it could be heard at any time of the day
Brenda, I pray that all goes well. Please let us know.
*****
I added another Victim Impact Statement yesterday:
Thomas Haberer: Victim Impact Statement
Thank you for sharing that Tom.
There are others coming. Those who agreed to send them along please forward them to me as either a pdf file or cut/copy and paste. The invitation goes also to those whom I did not have opportunity to ask. Email to: cornwall@theinquiry.ca. Please check with others and ask if they would be good enough to send them along. I can actually get the transcript from the courthouse, but transcripts cost money 🙁 It would be better if I could have them sent to me.
*****
I talked at length to “J19” this evening.
J19 was sexually abused by Hod Marshall in the 50s while at St. Michael’s College High School. J19 reported the abuse to the Basilians in 1996. It was on th eheels of this that Hod was pulled out of Saint Lucia and sent off to St. Luke’s Institute.
I asked J19 if he would talk to me about this because I wasn’t very clear on this dimension of the Hod Marshall saga. I wanted to get it squared away in my own mind and clear up any confusion which may have been created in the earlier days of the blog when people were trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
So, here is how things unfolded for J19.
J19 told his wife shortly after they were married in the 60s that he was abused by Hod Marshall. He told no one else.
In 1996 J19 was seeing a therapist. The issue of the sex abuse came up. J19 identified Hod Marshall as his abuser.
The therapist wanted to call police. J19 said he would prefer to deal with it his own way.
J19 set up an appointment to see the principal at SMCH. He met with a man he believes was the interim principal.
After that meet at the school another Basilian was contacted. J19 describes this other Basilian as someone who ‘went all over the world putting out fires.’
Hod was then in St. Lucia and had been since around 1989.
A Basilian priest travelled to St. Lucia to confront Hod with the allegations. Hod admitted. There was no denial.
Hod was immediately removed from St. Lucia and in short order was sent to St. Luke’s Institute in Maryland.
The Basilians were going to call police. J19 said “no” – he wanted to confront Hod in person. J19 told me that at the time he just wanted to stop Hod from abusing other boys. He wasn’t being vindictive. He wanted Hod to stop.
The Basilians set up an appointment for J19 to visit Hod at St. Luke’s.
The first meet with Hod did not go well. J19 left feeling it was a total waste of his time.
J19 decided to pay Hod a second visit.
According to J19 Hod told him:”I won’t ever do that again.”
The meeting really upset J19: “This man has more balls than I can believe…he has no shame in him.” According to J19 there was not the slightest glimmer of shame. None.
I believe it was at this meeting that Hod said he had stopped molesting after he molested J19, but, that he had had a few “slips” since then! (Forgive me, but given that J19 was molested in the 50s I think it is fair to say that, in Hod’s view, the bulk of the victims gathered in the court room last Wednesday and Thursday must constitute “slips”?! )
According to J19, after that second meeting Hod was heading off to a ball game or some such pleasure. For Hod, it was just another day and business as usual.
As far as J19 is concerned, the Basilians did all the right thins after he approached them. They pulled Hod from St. Lucia. They were ready to call in the police. And they set up the meeting at St. Luke’s.
I don’t know where the Basilians duty to report to Children’s Aid Society would have fit in in 1996? The duty to report did exist. But, that’s another whole issue.
Did the Basilians know what Hod was up to before they were contacted by J19? I asked J19. Yes. According to J19 the Basilians admitted there had been prior sex abuse allegations against Hod. I don’t know which prior reports and when, but …they knew. That would mean that at the very least while Hod was serving in St. Lucia the Basilians, if not before, the Basilians had received reports that he was sexually abusing children.
J19 thinks that it is highly possible that Hod molested his brother too. His brother is deceased, and J19 has nothing to prove it, but, it’s a thought which, for various reasons, runs through his mind.
….
Thank you for talking to me J19. Please feel free to add or correct.
*****
When he addressed the court on Wednesday last (o8 June) Hod Marshall said that a director at St. Luke’s Institute warned him not to contact his victims as it might open up old wounds and do more harm than good.
I asked Andrew Bradie (Hod’s lawyer) for the name of the director. Mr. Bradie said he would ask Hod and let me know in the morning.
I checked with Bradie the next day. He forgot to ask.
Did a director at St. Luke’s advise Hod against contacting his victims? I don’t know, but if that is what a director said I would certainly like to know who it was.
Is that standard procedure at St. Luke’s? Does anyone know?
*****
I was less than impressed with Justice Lloyd Dean’s lecture of the victims. I think I will order the transcripts to see if it was as bad as it seemed in the heat of the moment. I personally felt that Deans was condescending and lecturing the victims. It seemed to me that he had sympathy+++ for the plight of Hod Marshall and significantly less for the victims. I was annoyed and terribly disappointed.
*****
Just an observation. By the latter part of Wednesday afternoon Father Timothy Scott csb was having an awful time keeping his eyes open. Down would go the head. Then the fingers twitching. Then a snap up of the head. A millisecond later, down would go the head. Further down. Further. Further. Then, snap. Back up. Then down it went. Down. Down. Then his Blackberry must have vibrated in his shirt pocket. Snap. Out came the blackberry. Then, business taken care of, down went the head.
It’s an awful feeling to be drowsing off like that. We’ve probably all been there at one time or another. I nearly felt a little sorry him. But, under these circumstances? and in the midst of the Victim Impact Statements? The optics were not good.
*****
The visuals in the courtroom were jarring. Victims in their 70s. A 40-year-old victim. At least one other victim in his 40s. And then those in their 50s. And those in their 60s. And those in their 70s.
All sexually abuse by Hod Marshall. Hod’s life.
And one female. Hod was friend to the family. Her brother was sexually abused by Hod as a young boy. She was sexually assaulted by Hod when she was 23 or 24. The word is that there a number of other female victims out there who didn’t want to come forward.
It was teh female victim’s brother who referred to himself in the third person throughout his Victim Impact Statement. He was simply “the boy.” Always “the boy.” Once he slipped and said “I.” That was too much to bear. He broke down. Back to “the boy.”
The sister doesn’t know what Hod did to her brother. Her brother has never told her. In fact, he didn’t want her to hear his Victim Impact Statement. He asked her to leave the room while he read it. She has an idea what happened to him because she heard the other Victims Impact Statements. But, she really doesn’t know.
All so sad.
A room full of suffering humanity.
*****
Some details on Hod’s time in St. Lucia.
Hod was in St. Lucia to assist in establishing the Holy Family Children’s Home in Ciceron. The home served boys and girls from newborn to age 14.
As Pastor of St. Benedict’s Church Hod visited the Ciceron Grade School on a regular basis.
****
I must pass this on while it is still running through my mind. When Hod was ushered into the courtroom last Wednesday (08 June 2011) he initially sat looking straight ahead. However, within moments he turned around and promptly proceeded to intently yet casually scrutinize the crowd. And, I mean intently. There was not a hint of shame. He was literally checking us out one by one. I was floored, as were others.
*****
Hod and the victims were booked into the same hotel. It was a very uncomfortable situation for those victims who encountered him in the halls.
*****
An analogy I received by email yesterday:
Healing for one who has been abused is not like the healing of a wound or cut…rather it is like trying to replace a limb that has been separated from the body and tossed a thousand miles away. You are forced to live the rest of your life without the benefit or beauty of that which was taken – wholeness is rarely possible to attain.
Enough for now,
Sylvia