LONDON (ONTARIO, CANADA)
London Free Press

February 12, 2021

By Jane Sims

It wasn’t long after her Supreme Court of Canada victory that Irene Deschenes found out her battle with the Roman Catholic Church is far from over.

On Thursday, the country’s highest court dismissed the church’s application for leave to appeal the reopening of Deschenes’ settled civil suit for the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of pedophile priest Charles Sylvestre.

The decision was the church’s last chance at stopping the re-litigation of a case that was settled for $100,000 and pushed Deschenes to uncover evidence of Sylvestre’s rampant abuses over four decades when he was a priest in Windsor, London, Sarnia, Chatham and Pain Court.

Within hours of the court’s decision, the Roman Catholic Diocese of London issued a statement that said it was “disappointed” with the ruling, but that the church’s rediscovery…