Paul Leroux, Right, Has Served One Year of a Three-year Prison Sentence on His Conviction of Molesting 10 Boys in the 1960s at Beauval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.

Indian Country Today Media Network
February 12, 2015

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/02/12/boarding-school-pedophile-out-parole-saskatchewan-after-one-year-served-159173

Boarding School Pedophile Out on Parole in Saskatchewan After One Year Served

Sentenced to three years for the sexual abuse of boys at a Saskatchewan residential school more than 50 years ago, convicted pedophile Paul Leroux has been granted full parole after serving just one year, CBC News reports.

The victims were all students at Beauval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan during the 1970s, according to CBC News. Among other factors, the judge took into account Leroux’s age, which was 73 at the time, and gave him concurrent, rather than consecutive, sentences, radio station CKOM reported after the 2013 sentencing. Leroux’s victims did not buy it.

"I think it was a farce, given the number of offenses," said one of the victims to CBC News after his December 2013 sentencing. "And I don't think age should have ever been a factor in his sentencing, because he sure didn't consider the age of the people he molested."

Leroux, who worked as a dormitory supervisor at the Beauval school—which was in operation from 1895 through 1983, and was run by the Catholic Church—had served 10 years for similar abuse at Grollier Hall in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, CBC News said.

The sentence and parole stand in stark contrast to those of defrocked so-called pedophile priest Eric Dejaeger, who was convicted on two dozen counts of sexual abuse of children in Igloolik during the 1970s and ’80s and was recently handed a sentence of 19 years, minus eight years served, in Nunavut.

RELATED: 'Wolf in Shepherd's Clothing' Pedophile Priest Eric Dejaeger Gets 19-Year Sentence in Nunavut

While many of Leroux’s victims were outraged, some of them said that their psychological injuries would not have been assuaged with more prison time for their tormenter. The victims’ names have not been made public.

"It doesn't matter what he gets," one victim told CBC News. "The damage is done. He's stolen many years from us. Whether he gets two, three, four, 10 years, it doesn't matter."