CANADA
Western Star
Barb SweetPublished on April 11, 2016
To save money on hot shower water, boys would be forced by the Christian Brothers into the orphanage swimming pool with a bar of Sunlight soap to wash up, a witness told the Mount Cashel civil trial this morning, while recounting how he was dragged onetime from the locker room into the pool.
The witness is the fourth former resident to testify among four test cases in a trial to determine whether the RC Episcopal Corp. of St. John’s is liable for physical and sexual abuse by some Christian Brothers at the orphanage during the period — 1940s to 1960s. There are 60 claimants in all represented by the test cases. (As well various other law firms, in have 20 similar cases in total.)
The witness said he would hide in the locker room to avoid the swimming pool bathing ritual and would cry out in anguish over why he was placed in the orphanage and why his father had to die. He told the court last week that his father died in a hit and run accident when the witness was a young boy. He was placed in Mount Cashel and girls in the family were sent to Belvedere orphanage.
The witness recalled some boys were whacked on the hands as many as 50 times a day in front of their class and the worst he saw it for harsh discipline at the orphanage was in the period 1946-50.
The witness is being cross-examined today by Chris Blom, one of the Ontario lawyers representing the Roman Catholic church, which contends it did not run the orphanage and therefore is not liable. It maintains the facility was solely operated by the lay order Christian Brothers.
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