It saddens me greatly to relay the news that the Preliminary Hearing for Father Linus Bastien has been rescheduled to run from 27 February 2014 to 06 March 2014.
You will recall that hearing which was originally scheduled to run from 15-19 July was cancelled due to a death int he judge’s family. You may also recall that, with news of the cancellation, “Wilson” blogged that he had decided to withdraw his charges.
I don’t know what has happened to Wilson, if he has or has not taken to steps to have his charges withdrawn. I pray he has not, but, unfortunately understood if he has had enough. However I also believe that justice must be done, our children must be protected, those who prey on children should be publicly and identified as the molesters and criminals that they are, and that, where possible, every victim should have opportunity to face his victims in a court of law.
That all becomes difficult when those who finally gain the courage and strength to go to police have to wait for an eternity to see the charges reach trial. In this case, charges were first laid in October 2011. That means it will be over two years when the preliminary hearing finally gets off the ground.
And that’s not the end of it. The preliminary hearing will only determine if there is sufficient evidence to proceed to trial. If Father Bastien is ordered to stand trial, there will without doubt be another number of months of waiting before trial.
Please keep these complainants in your prayers. This will be upsetting and frustrating news for all of them. Those who know the complainants please reach out to them and support them in these difficult days.
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Father Gary Hoskins has a one day Preliminary Inquiry scheduled for 14 January 2014 in Stephenville, Newfoundland. A Preliminary Inquiry is the same as a preliminary hearing – the purpose essentially is to put some of the evidence before a judge who will determine if there is sufficient evidence to go to trial.
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Ex seminarian Paul Leroux goes to trial 14 October 2013 (10 am, Battleford, Sask., courthouse). The trial is booked for three weeks.
Leroux has been convicted twice before on harges related to child sex abuse, once in ’79 for the sex abuse of a boy in Inuvik, and again in ’98 for the sex abuse of boys at the Groller Hall, a residential school in Inuvik. Leroux had worked as a supervisor at the school. (Following an RCMP task force four supervisors at the school were charged and convicted. One, Martin Houston – “the Devil of Grollier Hall – later became a priest). Leroux was also charged in ’97 after Vancouver police searched his room and unearthed “one of the largest seizures of (child pornography) ever made” in Vancouver.
The current charges against Leroux relate to his time working at the Beauval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan (LaPlonge) between 1960 to 1967.
I am hoping there is enough interest in the Battleford area in these charges to bring people to the courthouse for the trial, both to support the complainants and to follow and give feedback on the trial itself. There is certainly interest in what happens at this trial in the North.
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There are still a few more court dates to update. Hopefully I can have everything uo-to-date by week’s end 🙂
Enough for now,
Sylvia