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	Similarities in Victims' Testimony Gives Them Credence, Crown Says By Bob Vaillancourt North Bay Nugget May 26, 2009 http://www.nugget.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1583412 Bernard Cloutier was a skilled manipulator who used his position as a parish priest to ingratiate himself with devout Catholic families to get access to young boys, a Sudbury court was told Monday. Crown and defence lawyers began final arguments in the trial of the Roman Catholic priest on 16 sex charges over alleged incidents involving the five males from 1970 to 1983. The charges include seven counts of gross indecency, seven counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault. Cloutier was serving as parish priest at Paroisse Saints-Anges in North Bay when he was first charged in June 2007. Cloutier played upon the blind trust and respect his victims and their families had for their parish priest," said prosecutor Diana Fuller. That trust and respect facilitated extraordinary access to the complainants" for Cloutier, she said. The complainants, now all adult men, were between the ages of 12 and 17 when Cloutier befriended and then assaulted them, they said in their testimony. One of the men testified Cloutier fondled him at a camp in Windy Lake Provincial Park in the summer of 1971. He was 17 at the time. The physical acts involved in the assaults progressed from there, getting worse as the complainants got younger, said Fuller. Another man testified he was subjected to several incidents over several years, both in Espanola and later at the family's next home in Massey. Two others testified Cloutier assaulted them at a pop and chip" party he hosted solely for them on a Friday night in the fall of 1982. The two were given alcohol by Cloutier, he said. One of the two was 12 at the time. Another man testified Cloutier had fondled him repeatedly while the priest was stationed at St. Louis de France parish in Espanola in the mid-1970s. The man was 15 at the time. Another, a former altar boy, told the trial he woke up in bed one day with the priest lying on top of him. The man said that as a boy he and a friend would often visit Cloutier in the church rectory to listen to music on the priest's stereo system. The man, who was between 12 and 14 years old at the time, said Cloutier would also allow him to smoke at the rectory, with Cloutier providing the cigarettes. Then, one weekend Cloutier invited the man and another altar boy to a sleepover at the rectory. After some drinking and smoking, the priest told the two boys that he only had two beds so one of them would have to sleep with him one night and the other the second night. He ended up being the one to sleep with the priest the first night, he said. The lawyers spent much of Monday arguing the issue of similar fact evidence and whether Superior Court Justice Paul Kane could use the evidence of one complainant to support the evidence of the others in deciding to accept their testimony. The Crown argued the similarities in the testimony gave credence to what each of the men said happened. But defence lawyer Gregory Ellies argued the similarities may not be the result of independent recollections but rather from collusion by some of the complainants. Closing arguments continue today.
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