CANADA
The Record
IQALUIT, Nunavut – The Crown’s case against a former northern priest facing 80 charges of sex abuse against Inuit children has ended after weeks of wrenching testimony from Eric Dejaeger’s alleged victims.
A total of 42 witnesses were called, many from the tiny Nunavut community of Igloolik, where Dejaeger was posted as an Oblate missionary between 1978 and 1982. Dejaeger’s accusers sobbed their way through much of the testimony.
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One woman described how, as a girl of 12, she was taped to a bed and sodomized. Other witnesses told how Dejaeger forced them to watch him commit acts of bestiality.
Another said that Dejaeger raped her and, after she tried unsuccessfully to clean off the blood from her injuries, set her down on a couch over which he had draped garbage bags to prevent staining.
Many in the witness box pushed their bodies as far as possible from Dejaeger, who sat only a few metres from them. It was common for testimony to be given over the sound of loud sobs and wailing from outside court from those who had just told their story.
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