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Son of Late Grenville Headmaster Arrested for Sex Assault

By Alex Ballingall
Toronto Star
October 7, 2016

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/10/07/son-of-late-grenville-headmaster-arrested-for-sex-assault.html

Grenville Christian College, an elite private boarding school northeast of Brockville, Ont., shut down in 2007. (CTV W5)

The son of the late headmaster of a now-defunct private Christian school in eastern Ontario, which is subject to a $225-million abuse lawsuit, has been charged with sexual assault and indecent exposure.

Ontario Provincial Police allege the offences occurred against a single victim in 1986 and 1987. To protect the anonymity of the alleged victim, OPP Sgt. Angie Atkinson would not confirm or deny any connection to the school, which was called Grenville Christian College. She would only say that police believe the crimes took place in Grenville County, northeast of Kingston.

Robert Farnsworth, 49, was arrested on Wednesday and appeared in a Brockville courtroom the following day. Donald Farnsworth, one of the long-time headmaster’s other sons and a former teacher at the school, confirmed to the Star on Thursday that the man arrested is his brother.

“I can’t really talk any more about it. We’ll let the legal system take care of it,” he said.

From 1973 to its closure in 2007, Grenville Christian College billed itself as a prestigious boarding school for girls and boys, with a scenic campus near the shoreline of the St. Lawrence River, just east of Brockville. The class action lawsuit, which was certified in 2014, features more than 180 plaintiffs who attended the school between 1973 and 1997. Their statement of claim alleges that, as Grenville students, they were subject to arbitrary discipline, bizarre religious practices and systemic abuse that left them “sexually, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually traumatized.”

In a statement of defence from 2010, the school claimed “there is no truth whatsoever” to the allegations.

Charles Farnsworth, who died in March 2015, was the Grenville headmaster from 1983 to 1997, according to his son Donald’s affidavit from 2010.

The Farnsworths’ lawyer, Geoffrey Adair, who is also defending the college in the lawsuit, told the Star on Thursday that Robert Farnsworth would have “probably” been assigned some work at the school during the mid-1980s. He said he was aware that police were investigating the 49-year-old based on historic allegations, but was “surprised” to learn that he had been arrested.

He added that the statement of claim in the lawsuit does not mention Robert Farnsworth as an alleged perpetrator of abuse.

Andrew Hale-Byrne, centre, another student who graduated in the mid-1990s, said he was subjected to “psychological warfare” at the school, where teachers routinely called students names like “pig,” “filth,” “trash” and “slut.”

In an email Thursday, Loretta Merritt, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said she believes Charles’s son Robert Farnsworth was a junior staff member at the school when the alleged assault occurred.

Angus Janes told the Star on Thursday that he remembers Robert from his time at Grenville, where they were students in the early 1980s. He was a few years older than Robert, and said he recalls that he didn’t like the rules of the school. “He didn’t even like his father, from what he told me,” said Janes, who is now 52. “He seemed like a normal guy—normal meaning he wasn’t your typical staff kid pushing the school’s agenda.”

Andrew Hale-Byrne, another student who graduated in the mid-1990s, said he was subjected to “psychological warfare” at the school, where teachers routinely called students names like “pig,” “filth,” “trash” and “slut.”

He said he remembers Robert Farnsworth as a member of the school staff.

Earlier this year, the Star reported on the allegations of seven former Grenville students—including Hale-Byrne—who claimed in affidavits and interviews that they experienced fear, humiliation and violence during their time at the school.

Central to the claims of former students are allegations that Grenville faculty, including Charles Farnsworth, had close ties with a small religious sect from Massachusetts called the Community of Jesus.

According to the plaintiffs’ statement of claim, while the school presented itself as Anglican, the college’s staff engaged in a “systematic campaign . . . to promote and indoctrinate students in the teachings” of the Community of Jesus.

Fathers Charles Farnsworth and J. Alastair Haig, who co-founded Grenville, were members of the Community of Jesus, but in 1977 they were also ordained Anglican priests. Haig served as headmaster until 1983, at which point Farnsworth took over until 1997.

With files from Ben Spurr

 

 

 

 

 




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