Ontario MLA - Garry Guzzo
Inquiry into alleged pedophile ring aims to help community heal, judge says
Canadian
Press
Published:
Monday, February 13, 2006
CORNWALL,
Ont. -- A judge probing an alleged pedophile ring involving prominent
citizens says the inquiry should allow healing in the eastern Ontario community.
Justice
Normand Glaude opened his judicial inquiry today, saying it will be ``a lengthy
and sometimes difficult process.'' Glaude
is probing how the justice system responded to accusations that a pedophile ring
operated in the Cornwall area.
Sordid
tales have spread of a group of pedophiles that existed since the late 1950s and
involved members of the region's Roman Catholic clergy. In
the 1990s, police laid 114 charges against a doctor, a lawyer, three Roman
Catholic priests and 10 other prominent community members in an investigation
dubbed Project Truth. Only
one person was convicted of sex offences and police said they found no evidence
a pedophile ring. Glaude
said the probe might help other communities when faced with such emotionally
fraught allegations. David
Wolfe, an expert in child sexual abuse, was the first witness.
© Canadian Press 2006
