The devastating effects of Eric Dejaeger The sexual abuses of seven Inuit children more than four decades felt a generation later, a judge said on Thursday when he pronounced the former Catholic priest a sentence of six years in prison.
Dajaeger pleaded guilty last week for indecent assaults against six girls and a boy between 1978 and 1982 in the hamlet of Igloolik, NVT. He has already been found guilty of dozens of other sexual offenses involving children in Nunavut and Alberta.
“He destroyed their childhood, harmed their relations with their families and ruined their relations with their church,” said Faiyaz Alibhai on Thursday in his decision to condemn.
“The trauma has passed on the next generation, as the children of its victims also suffered from the consequences of its actions.”
The court heard heartbreaking accounts of five mistreatment survivors, who were between four and nine years old, when the attacks took place. The other two victims have since died.
The judge stopped frequently to allow an interpreter to repeat his words in Inuktitut.
“Almost all of the victims have indicated that the offenses destroyed their relationship with the Catholic Church, the marginaties, which made them difficult to communicate with their loved ones, to engage in physical intimacy or to be close of their children, “said Alibhai.
“They have also become overprotective of their children.”
Crown and defense lawyers had jointly recommended the six years.
Dejaeger, 77, was held before the court and made brief remarks before being sentenced.
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“I would like to ask for forgiveness for the cruel things I have done,” he said.
“I am a changed person. And all the time I am in prison – I had a lot of time to think. And also the last 40 years, I have not refused. »»
Philippe Plourde, the chief federal prosecutor of Nunavut, said that he was happy that Canada’s public service may have had his team for pursuing sexual violence in Nunavut, the Crown witness coordinator and the staff of the services Victims before the courts to support the survivors.
“No trouble will repair the damage caused by such atrocious violence, in particular by someone in a position of trust and authority who abused the most vulnerable members of our society, children,” said Plourde in a statement .
“However, the courage of all those who presented themselves to talk about these abuses greatly contribute to ensuring that the wounded are heard by the community and by the offender.”
George Dolhai, director of public prosecutions, said that the case shows that justice can be done, regardless of the time that has passed.
“This encourages people who have undergone such abuses to manifest themselves, thus supporting confidence in the administration of criminal justice.”
Dejaeger is subject to a number of conditions for determining the sentence, including a life ban on firearms and other weapons and a life order to register as a sexual offender. Nor can he attend areas where children are or could be present, such as swimming pools and playgrounds. And he cannot work or volunteer with them in a position of confidence or authority.
Also must not have contact with anyone under the age of 16 unless an adult is present all the time, and he cannot use a computer to communicate with a child under the age of 16.
The RCMP announced in June 2023 that Dejaeger had been arrested on a mandate across Canada in Kingston, Ontario, where he lived. Police said the accusations flowed from investigations between 2011 and 2015.
Alibhai noted on Thursday was the fifth time that Dejaeger, a former Oblat missionary, was sentenced for crimes against children.
Dejaeger served a five -year sentence, from 1990, for sexual crimes against the children of Baker Lake, nvt., Commissioned between 1982 and 1989.
A year later, he was sentenced to eight months out of two other chiefs of sexual assault.
In 2015, he was sentenced to 19 years in prison for 32 crimes against Inuit children and certain adults between 1978 and 1982 in Iglooolik.
Later that year, he was convicted of historical sexual offenses against children in Alberta, with the term simultaneously served with the previous accusations of Iglooolik.
He received a statutory release on May 19, 2022, after having served two thirds of his sentence.
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