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  Sex Abuse Probe Wrecked Family's Life, Former Cop's Wife Says
Whistleblower Faced Intimidation from Colleagues

Ottawa Sun
September 20, 2007

http://ottsun.canoe.ca/News/OttawaAndRegion/2007/09/19/4510352.html

CORNWALL, Ont. — Death threats against her husband and children, emotional health issues, and multiple court cases have been a major part of her life for the past 14 years, the wife of a former city police officer told an inquiry on Wednesday.

Helen Dunlop said the family's life changed when her husband, Perry, first told her about allegations of child sexual abuse.

In 1993, he stumbled upon police files detailing allegations of abuse levelled against a city priest.

The file suggested the alleged victim had received $32,000 from the Alexandria-Cornwall Roman Catholic Diocese and the investigation had been terminated.

Perry Dunlop has repeatedly told the inquiry probing the institutional response to allegations of systemic sexual abuse in the Cornwall area he has nothing further to say and has refused to testify.

When her husband tried to return to work as a city police officer in 1997 after having taken a sick leave, he was far from welcomed back with open arms by his former colleagues, Helen Dunlop testified.

"It wasn't the same," she said. "He was put into a room with no phone and no window."

He spent five months working on an outline of every action he had taken in relation to his contact with police officers, public agencies and victims of sexual abuse, she said.

The family decided to leave Cornwall and move to British Columbia in the summer of 2000.

"We wanted to go some place where nobody knew us," she said, "to get away from the stress and to raise the kids."

The Dunlops and their daughters settled into their new home and were in the process of putting some of the difficulties of the previous years behind them when there was a knock on their door early one morning.

Two provincial police officers, Det. Const. Joe Dupuis and Det. Const. Don Genier, were standing there, she said.

The two officers had come from Cornwall to serve Perry Dunlop with an order to turn over all documents he had relating to any victims or alleged victims of child sexual abuse.

One of her daughters was so upset by the unexpected visitors she fled the house, Helen Dunlop testified.

"She (went) across the field, she ran away," she said. "She said it was because I had promised this would stop."

"They flew out there for a week to intimidate us, to harass us and to wreak havoc in our lives," she said.

 
 

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