My story:
I am telling my story because in the 61 years since I was abused by a principal of a rural school, abuse of children in our school system is still massively underreported and the systems in place to weed out and identify perpetrators are woefully inadequate and support for the victims is almost non-existent. In my case, there is no support whatsoever because although civil cases against sexual predators of children have no time limit, here in British Columbia, (BC) victim support services do not exist for cases that occurred prior to 1975.
My abuser was the principal of Ucluelet elementary school from 1964 to 1966. He molested me for three months during hour long trips to the local curling rink by slipping his hand under my buttocks and he tried unsuccessfully to molest me when the car he was driving was caught in a snowbank for 24 hours and in a movie theater in Vancouver. He tried repeatedly to get me to go on road trips with him, but my mother intervened, even though I had never told her what was going on. I was too afraid that a principal would be believed over my testimony, and I was too ashamed to admit that I was being targeted by this man.
In 1983, my principal was arrested in Kitimat, BC for sexual interference of students at Kildala elementary school. He had been a principal there for ten years after leaving Ucluelet and Gibsons BC. I was contacted by the RCMP at that time, and I gave them a witness statement for his upcoming trial. He pled guilty to lesser charges against several victims and received a two-year sentence. He retired and bought a house adjacent to an elementary school in Landner, BC where he lived for thirty-six years.
In 2019 I was contacted by the sister of a man who had been molested by the principal in the seventies and told me that several more victims from the seventies were bringing civil suits against him. She told me it would help if I started a case because it would strengthen the case for vicarious liability of the school boards. She told me it would show that what happened in Kitimat was not an isolated incident. Since 2019, several more victims have started civil cases against him, and several have been successfully mediated. In a recent settlement the lawyer for the school board admitted that this man was a “monster”.
In early 2020, I started a civil case against him, which is still winding its way towards the courts. I asked for all the relevant data from the 1983 case, including my original victim statement and I was told none of it existed. I found out, after several months, that the principal was given a pardon in 1993 and all his records were sealed. I have asked the federal government to unseal all the records of sexual abusers of children because since 2007 pardons are no longer available to these predators. My requests to the minister responsible, Dominic Leblanc, remains unanswered still after more than two years.
I joined Stop Educator Child Exploitation, (SECE) in 2022 and have attempted, so far unsuccessfully to get SECE’s research and recommendations in front of the local school board and the Ministry of Education here in BC. My requests have either been completely denied or ignored altogether. I will keep advocating for change and for the SECE recommendations to taken seriously here in BC. At a recent conference in Tofino, BC on sexual abuse, it was obvious that this is a serious and ongoing issue in our schools and that a major review to the way they are dealt with needs to happen here in British Columbia. The school system should be focused on our children’s safety and health over and above their institutional reputations.