Sex Abuse and Criminal Liability
My question involves child sex abuse in the province of Quebec, Canada:
I was sadistically sex abused by a priest at an all boys' private school in 1959. I only realized and discovered the abuse last year. There is already a class action against the school for vicarious liability. I have been diagnosed with chronic and severe PTSD but have had psychiatric problems all my life. Now I know why....My pscyhologist said the trauma was too great for me to enter my consciousness back then, but I suffered deeply all those years. But now it is there and I am furious.
Can the Board of directors be held criminally responsible for the sex abuse by the school's "vital organs -- the Anglican priest" by virtue of the identification theory? There are no statute of limitations here in Canada on sex abuse, and this person was a vital link in the corporate culture and operations of the school, as he had responsibility for 75 "new" boys living there in dormitories, plus he was the only priest giving daily prayers and Sunday service and its choirmaster. He held an extremely responsible position and role within the school, almost at par with the Board of Directors....as he disciplined boys to fit the corproate mindset, which at the timje was that of the "British" public school system, plus he was a Brit. More than 30 known boys were abused owith maybe 100's more. he was there 10 years.:confused::(
montreal, Quebec, canada
Re: Sex Abuse and Criminal Liability
You'll need to consult a lawyer in Canada. These issues can be complicated, moreso when you're claiming fifty years of memory repression, and this is U.S. forum.
Re: Sex Abuse and Criminal Liability
thought it was international...besides, a lot of US jurisprudence is good...sex abuse is sex abuse and 50 years of repression is possible according to my therapists. depends on degree of trauma.
thank you though.
Re: Sex Abuse and Criminal Liability
Child abuse can indelibly mark and alter genes in its young victims leaving them less able to cope with stress later in life, according to new Canadian research.
A Montreal team has discovered large numbers of "chemical marks," which inhibit a key mechanism for dealing with stress, in the brains of young men who were physically or sexually abused as children and later committed suicide.
"It's almost as if there is an imprint left," says Michael Meaney at McGill University, who heads the team that has already toppled many long-held views of how early experience impacts behaviour and genes.
Their new study, published Sunday in Nature Neuroscience, is seen as the most convincing evidence yet that childhood abuse permanently modifies genes leaving victims less able to cope with stress.
"Here is a mechanism by which significant adverse experience becomes inscribed in our brains," says neuroscientist Dr. Steven Hyman, provost of Harvard University, who reviewed the paper for Nature. Not only has the Montreal group shown abuse can cause specific changes in the brain, but also a change in expression of an important gene, Hyman said in an interview.
Abuse is believed to be prevalent with as many as 10 to 15 per cent of children physically or sexually abused, says Meaney. "It's tragic," he says.
Re: Sex Abuse and Criminal Liability
For every therapist who says 50 years of repression is possible, there are an equal (and louder) number who say it isn't. And regardless of what EXPERTS say, the matter is ultimately in the hands of a jury - lay persons who don't have medical, psychological, psychiatric, or other training that even gives them a basis to be open-minded to the possibility (the truth is that juries rarely grasp the difference between "repression" and "I forgot"). While there certainly HAVE been noteable convictions in repressed memory cases, they tend to be rare. (Not saying they don't happen, just warning you not to get your hopes up.)
Beyond that issue however, is that there are VAST differences in US vs Canadian law about the circumstances under which such a case can even be brought before the court after so many years - as well as some procedural issues regarding the use of expert testimony that must be satisfied FIRST before the court will entertain such a case. You'll definately want to talk with a Canadian attorney with specialization in the field.