CANADA
CBC News
A judge in Quebec City heard closing arguments today in a class-action lawsuit that alleges sexual abuse by members of the clergy.
It marks the final stage in the province’s first ever class-action lawsuit over sexual abuse by priests to go to trial. Until now, all other cases had been settled out of court.
Lawyers representing more than a dozen men who attended Séminaire Saint-Alphonse, a private boarding school in Saint-Anne-de-Beaupré near Quebec City, alleged there was systemic abuse and a cover-up at the school.
Serge Létourneau, a lawyer in the case, said that two of the alleged abusers were once principals at the school and also sat on the provincial executive committee of the Redemptorist Order.
During the trial, 12 men testified about being molested regularly in their youth during the ’70s and ’80s.
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