TORONTO (ONTARIO, CANADA)
CTV News
September 15, 2020
By Omar Sachedina and Ben Cousins
[Includes video interviews with Sylvestre survivors Irene Deschenes and Joanne Morrison.]
A woman who was sexually abused by a priest as a child has taken her decades-long legal fight with the Roman Catholic Church to its front steps as she urges the London, Ont. diocese to drop its Supreme Court appeal against her.
Irene Deschenes was abused by Father Charles Sylvestre for two agonizing years that began when she was just 10 years old, at St. Ursula Catholic School in Chatham, Ont.
Deschenes said Sylvestre was friendly at first, taking her and other children for bowling outings and to the beach, but things turned sinister quickly.
“I remember a nice, caring man that was friendly, funny,” Deschenes told CTV News. “Now in hindsight, I see that was all grooming.”
In 2006 and decades after the abuse, Sylvestre pleaded guilty to sexually abusing 47 children in parishes across southern Ontario. He died in prison a year later.
Deschenes settled with the church for $66,000 after lawyer’s fees, but later found out the church knew about allegations concerning Sylvestre’s conduct for almost a decade prior to Deschenes’ abuse, without divulging this information to her.
Police reports dating back to 1962 had alleged that Sylvestre assaulted three young girls. The documents show the young girls — one of them 11 years old — alleged Sylvestre touched them inappropriately and exposed himself to them.
As a result, Deschenes is trying to reopen her case.
“Their failure to act on the statements back then is what allowed Irene to be abused in the first place,” said Deschenes’ lawyer Loretta Merritt.
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