The Brothers of Christian Instruction, the target of a $10 million class action, allegedly transferred alleged school aggressors to cover up the scandal, according to the application filed Friday in Superior Court.
The class action, authorized on May 21 by Judge Lukasz Granosik, includes anyone who has been sexually assaulted since 1940 by a member or employee of the Brothers of Christian Instruction.
In new court documents filed Friday, the testimony of 30 alleged victims is supported.
According to the victims’ lawyers, these testimonies demonstrate that “the Congregation was aware of the brothers’ sexual assaults on children, but that it preferred to move and protect the aggressors rather than help the victims.”
The plaintiff — who represents the group of victims for the class action — is a 76-year-old man. He was allegedly assaulted twice by a brother, in 1960 and 1961, when he was 13 years old and attending Sainte-Bernadette-Soubirous school in the Rosemont district of Montreal.
While the applicant was at the board, the brother allegedly tried to put his hand down the boy’s pants. The boy allegedly alerted both his mother, who confronted the brother, and his father, who accused him of “provoking” the brother and beat him.
The brother allegedly reoffended one evening after he asked the boy to stay at school to practice his singing. He allegedly forced the plaintiff to have sexual contact with him. The boy allegedly bit his attacker before fleeing.
The next day, he was allegedly punished by the school principal, who allegedly hit him on the hand with a strap for defying the brother’s authority.
According to court documents, the plaintiff subsequently fell into “a downward spiral” of drug and alcohol abuse, relationship and romantic difficulties and depressive episodes.
Displaced
Among the other testimonies listed is that of a man who was allegedly assaulted by a brother during the night on several occasions in 1952, while he was a boarder at Collège Jean La Mennais in La Prairie. The brother subsequently “disappeared from the college.” A superior reportedly summoned the boarder to tell him that he knew “that things had happened to him, but that ‘we must move forward and continue to pray.’”
Another man, a boarder at Saint-Joseph High School in Pointe-du-Lac, was assaulted several times in 1986 and 1987 by Father Ghislain Frigon, who would later be convicted for these acts. The boy had warned the school principal of the assaults. The principal allegedly tried to convince the victim’s parents that it was better for Brother Frigon to stay at the school to avoid a “scandal.” Faced with pressure from the parents, the brother was eventually transferred. It was the victim’s mother who filed a complaint with the Sûreté du Québec.
The other testimonies cited report assaults that took place in 19 other schools in the province, including the Institut La Mennais in Lac-Etchemin, the Saint-Léon school in Cowansville, the Saint-Joseph school or junior school in Pointe-du-Lac and the Notre-Dame school in Charny.
In total, more than 87 alleged victims have contacted the Arsenault, Dufresne, Wee law firm, which is leading the class action.
The testimonies listed in the application to initiate proceedings are those stating “knowledge of the corporation”, indicates the Duty Me Alain Arsenault: “We kept the testimonies of people who were assaulted by a superior or whose parents went to see the brother director or whose aggressor was moved.”
The lawyers accuse the Brothers of Christian Instruction of not having protected the children under their responsibility, of not having acted to stop the attacks and of having destroyed compromising archival documents.