The Telegram
June 24, 2011
http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2011-06-24/article-2610774/Bishop%26rsquo%3Bs-child-porn-sentencing-delayed/1
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| Bishop Raymond Lahey arrives to the Ottawa Court House in Ottawa today. — Photo by The Canadian Press |
A sentencing hearing for a Catholic bishop who possessed child pornography has been delayed until August.
Raymond Lahey was scheduled to be in court today for a daylong hearing for submissions on the length of his sentence.
On Tuesday, the hearing was pushed back to Aug. 4 and 5 because the Crown had yet to receive Lahey’s clinical file from Dr. John Bradford, the psychiatrist who examined Lahey at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre.
Prosecutors want time to examine the clinical records to properly cross-examine Bradford about his findings in a sexual behaviours assessment.
Lahey, who voluntarily went to jail after pleading guilty in May to possessing child pornography for the purpose of importation, faces a one-year mandatory minimum sentence.
The 71-year-old was bishop of Antigonish, N.S. when he was caught with child pornography on his laptop computer when passing through Ottawa’s airport in summer 2009 after a trip abroad.
Before moving to Nova Scotia, Lahey was the bishop of St. George's in western Newfoundland, and before that the vicar general of St. John’s.
Lahey is also fighting claims of sexual assault made in a civil lawsuit filed by Todd Boland in Newfoundland.
The former Mount Cashel resident has accused Lahey in court documents of simulated anal intercourse, sexual rubbing and fondling in the 1980s.
None of the allegations has been proven in court, and no related criminal charges have been filed.
Lahey has denied the claims
The Ottawa Citizen — with files from The Telegram
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