I can't believe no has posted any of this stuff. Vicki was on CBC in Toronto and other parts of Ontario again last night. She creamed them. She had about 1 to 2 million viewers watching her.
Here is the the Globe and Mail (coast to coast newspaper in Canada). National (front page section) page 18 (note you will have to connecet and copy the below url to your browser to link it.
http://www.globeandmail.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20020917/UJEHOM/national/national/
nationalTorontoHeadline_temp/3/3/3/
Elder defends treatment of abuse claim
By JANE GADD COURTS REPORTER |
A Jehovah's Witness elder who dealt with a sect member's complaint of sex abuse testified yesterday there was no need to call child-welfare authorities because the alleged perpetrator planned to report the abuse to his doctor.
Alleged victim Victoria Boer is suing Steven Brown, as well as two other elders and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
Mr. Brown denied he discouraged Ms. Boer from seeking medical help herself.
Ms. Boer seemed reluctant to talk about the abuse, which was already four years in the past when Mr. Brown learned of it in December, 1989, and expressed frustration with another elder who had been pressing her to see a psychiatrist, Mr. Brown said.
"What were we to do? Take a young girl and twist her arm, say go today?" Mr. Brown asked Ms. Boer's lawyer in Ontario Superior Court.
He said he took the word of Ms. Boer's father, Gower Palmer, that he would speak to a doctor and later bring his daughter with him.
"The doctor would have the resources to refer her. We didn't," Mr. Brown testified.
"Our role was to be spiritual shepherds."
He said he and other elders decided after two meetings with father and daughter that Mr. Palmer was penitent and, although he minimized what he had done, could be trusted to keep his word about reporting, and not harm his other children
Ms. Boer has testified the elders intimidated her into covering up the abuse to protect the movement's image.
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Here is the Toronto Sun article (read by about 1 million people)
http://www.canoe.ca/TorontoNews/ts.ts-09-17-0060.html
Tuesday, September 17, 2002
Sex abuse stumped elder
Jehovah's Witness was unsure how to handle case
By IAN MCDOUGALL, TORONTO SUN
An elder of the Shelburne Jehovah's Witness congregation admitted in court yesterday he would handle the case of a woman sexually abused by her father differently now by reporting the matter immediately to provincial authorities.
Steven Brown, one of the defendants in a $700,000 lawsuit, testified that after a 1990 meeting with Children's Aid workers over the woman's case, congregation officials had a better understanding of how to handle child abuse, including their reporting requirements.
Brown, fellow elder Brian Cairns and the church are being sued by the woman for failing to report her case to provincial authorities, for forcing her to confront her father and for discouraging her from getting medical treatment.
Brown said he first became aware of the sexual abuse in the woman's home during a December 1989 meeting with Cairns. Court heard it wasn't until Feb. 5, 1990, that Children's Aid was told about the case.
During the meeting, the father confessed he violated his daughter.
Cairns and Brown had not dealt with child abuse before and were unsure how to handle it -- especially the requirement to report it to secular authorities, Brown said.
"We didn't know who to refer the plaintiff to, we didn't know who to report the abuse to," he said.
"We have a young woman, not living at home, 19 or 20 years old. We had determined there was no immediate threat. We wondered how to proceed."
Brown said they wrote to the Watchtower society, the Witnesses' governing body, asking for advice.
As they waited for a response, other church elders became alarmed they had not reported the case to the authorities, Brown said.
He added the division within the congregation became a problem at the end of January 1990 while a committee was being formed to punish the woman's father.
The committee revoked his church privileges and told him to report to a doctor and to Children's Aid.
The Toronto Sun is not naming the woman or her family because she is a victim of sexual abuse.
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Here is the Southam News report that went in the Ottawa Citizen, Kingston Whig Standard and goes in about 50 to 70 papers in Canada
http://www.canada.com/search/site/story.asp?id=B7D7247C-58E8-48CB-A4B6-70FECD58B76E Abuser posed no threat: church elder Shannon Kari The Ottawa Citizen Tuesday, September 17, 2002\
TORONTO -- An elder at a southwestern Ontario congregation of the Jehovah's Witnesses yesterday defended a church decision to allow a man accused of having sexually abused his daughter in the mid-1980s to report himself to authorities.
Steve Brown testified in Ontario Superior Court that the abuse had stopped and there was no reason to suspect the two younger children in the family were in danger when elders in the Shelburne congregation learned of the allegations in December 1989.
Victoria Boer, 31, is suing Mr. Brown, two other church elders and the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society for $700,000, alleging "gross negligence" in refusing to report suspicions of child abuse as required by law.
Ms. Boer, who is permitting her name to be made public, alleges she was sexually abused by her father between the ages of 11 and 15, until her mother intervened.
The father has not been charged with a criminal offence, and he is not a defendant in the lawsuit.
A church committee did not expel the father or make the allegations public, Mr. Brown said.
"He was repentant and fit to be a member of the congregation," the church elder said.
"We were not sitting with a man who was determined to continue a course of wickedness."
Copyright 2002 The Ottawa Citizen
Edited by - hawkaw on 17 September 2002 11:31:31
Edited by - hawkaw on 17 September 2002 11:33:42