Monday, February 13, 2006
INVESTIGTING AN ALLEGED PEDOPHILE RING IN CORNWALL
TORONTO -- A long-awaited public inquiry that will examine how the justice system responded to allegations that doctors, lawyers and priests sexually abused children in an eastern Ontario city over the course of a half-century begins today.
The probe team includes lawyers who will look at 150,000-plus pages of documents. The inquiry is expected to take over a year.
"There has been at least a feeling in this community, and I'm sure in other communities, that the issue hasn't been fully and promptly addressed," Engelmann said.
Sordid tales have spread of a purported underground clan of pedophiles that existed since the late 1950s and allegedly involved prominent members of the region's Roman Catholic clergy.
Police laid 114 charges against 15 high-profile men in the 1990s under an investigation dubbed Project Truth, including a doctor, a lawyer and three Roman Catholic priests. But only one person, unconnected to the alleged sex ring, was ultimately convicted of sex offences.
The article indicates the police cover-up began in 1992 after a former altar boy, age 35, came forward claiming abuse by two priests in the 1960s.
Blogger credit to New Oxford Review.
