CANADA
CTV
Tamsyn Burgmann, The Canadian Press
Published Monday, June 22, 2015
VANCOUVER — For a payment of $5,000, John Furlong testified he was told that allegations he physically abused a former student decades earlier could be made to “go away.”
Furlong told a civil court trial that the bribery attempt came just months before the 2010 Winter Olympics, as the former Vancouver Games boss was preparing for the international sporting event.
“That stunned me. It was a shocking moment. I sat at my desk and I wondered, is this about embarrassing me or embarrassing the Olympics?” Furlong told B.C. Supreme Court on Monday.
Furlong was testifying in his defence against a lawsuit by freelance journalist Laura Robinson. She is seeking damages for defamation over comments Furlong made after she wrote two articles carrying allegations about him.
The stories made allegations of abuse related to Furlong’s work decades before as a physical education teacher at a Roman Catholic school mostly attended by First Nations students in British Columbia’s Interior.
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