Mount Cashel Files Reopened, Laura Fraser, The Chronicle Herald, October 3, 2009

Mount Cashel Files Reopened

By Laura Fraser
The Chronicle-Herald
October 3, 2009

http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/9013449.html

Rev. Raymond Lahey (centre) is seen with his lawyers Michael Edelson, left, and Vincent Clifford at their offices in Ottawa, Ont., this past Thursday.

Orphanage victim claims Lahey showed him porn 20 years ago

Police in Newfoundland reopened their files into St. John’s Mount Cashel orphanage after media reports on Thursday allege that one of the sex abuse victims told investigators decades ago that Bishop Raymond Lahey showed him child pornography.

CBC News reported that Shane Earle, who was abused as a boy by some of the Christian Brothers who ran the orphanage, told members of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary that Bishop Lahey showed him pornographic images in the 1980s.

The Chronicle Herald’s attempts to reach Mr. Earle and his brother, Billy, on Friday were unsuccessful.

Bishop Lahey surrendered to police in Ottawa on Thursday to face charges of possessing and importing child pornography after his laptop was seized by the Canada Border Service Agency during a random check at the Ottawa International Airport on Sept. 15.

Police said a forensic investigation allegedly found child pornography on the computer belonging to the former bishop for the Diocese of Antigonish.

In Newfoundland, officers have started reviewing more than one thousand interviews and files that were evidence for the Mount Cashel investigation. More than 100 criminal charges were laid at the time, said constabulary spokesman Const. Paul Davis.

The force has been looking through interviews with Shane and Billy Earle to see whether there is any record of either brother saying that Bishop Lahey showed them child pornography, Const. Davis said.

“So far we have not located any evidence to support the allegations that we’ve heard through (the media)," he said. “Now, we’re continuing to search our records to see if (we) can locate any evidence or information to support the allegations that have been asserted."

Const. Davis would not say whether Bishop Lahey had ever been investigated by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.

“Until we complete that search (of our files), we’re not going to be in a position to comment on that." Possession of child pornography did not become a crime until the 1990s.

In 1989, a Canadian Press report from the Hughes Inquiry into the sexual abuse of boys at the Mount Cashel orphanage mentioned an incident involving Bishop Lahey. Shane Earle testified he became violently depressed and tried to commit suicide after seeing something in the bishop’s home that deeply disturbed him. Mr. Earle began to speak about what he had seen when an inquiry lawyer, Clayton Powell, told him not to, according to the report.

When reached by telephone Friday, Mr. Powell said he could not remember that piece of testimony.

“I don’t recall (Bishop Lahey’s) name coming up at all," he said from his London, Ont., home. “It’s a fair question, but to tell you the truth thinking about (what came out during) the inquiry, I just get depressed. It happened 25 years ago, and I’m sorry, but I just don’t recall."

A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Halifax said there are no plans to investigate the Earle brothers’ allegations against Bishop Lahey.

“If there’s any investigation that needs to be done it would need to be directed and addressed by the dioceses in the place where this is alleged to have happened," Marilyn Sweet said. “Not by a church in the province of Nova Scotia."

Bishop Lahey will return to court in Ottawa on Nov. 4.

Contact: lfraser@herald.ca