Catholic Priest Eric Dejaeger was found guilty of 24 out of 80 sex related charges involving children after a 30 year delay.
Justice Robert Klipatrick reveals in his 202 page verdict that the judgement contains graphics the some may find disturbing. “This judgment contains graphic descriptions of sexual activity that some may find disturbing and offensive," Klipatrick revealed.
The 67 year old Dejaeger’s actions took place between 1978 and 1982 in the hamlet of Igloolik. He used the mission room, his own room and the land, when he is invited with families hunting and fishing.
In all, Dejaeger was convicted of 24 counts of indecent assault, one of unlawful confinement, two of buggery, three of unlawful sexual intercourse, one of sexual assault and one of bestiality. Victims include 12 boys, 10 girls and weirdly, a dog he abused in front of some children. Most children were between the ages of 8 and 12. One girl was assaulted after taping her to his bed and attacking her from behind, according to a witness who saw seven of her friends being attacked at a time.
According to witnesses, in their talks with the judge, Dejaeger used to threaten the children with hell fire in order to keep them silent and not tell anyone.
"Judges and juries do not possess divine insight into the soul of witnesses who testify in a legal proceeding. Decisions must be made on the basis of evidence alone, not intuition or guesswork,” Justice Klipatrick wrote.
"The quantity and quality of the evidence available to the court in this case has been substantially weakened by the passage of time. The reliability of the Crown's evidence on many counts is suspect. This is reflected by the results of this trial,” he added.
According to CBC News, the Catholic Priest had been sentenced for 11 sexual assaults on children before these incidents happened, so this was only the latest of Eric Dejaeger’s awful history.
Witnesses were having hard times to just be with the Priest in one room. "I felt numb, all the memories are coming back. I'm constantly numb all over. I can't think straight because everything keeps coming back,” one victim said.
