‘THERE’S A SEXUAL ABUSE HISTORY’
Military officials insist they move swiftly when they learn of allegations of sexual misconduct. However, internal emails suggest there has often been confusion over how to handle such incidents.
On Feb. 6, 2012, the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, the investigative arm of the military police, announced a B.C. cadet instructor, Capt. Daniel Moriarty, had been charged with sexual offences against cadets in Victoria and Vernon.
Before the announcement, senior cadet officials were bracing for the public relations fallout and talking points were drawn up to emphasize the “Cadet Program is a safer organization than ever before in our history.”
But parents only learned about the charges after the story came out in the media.
They expressed their dismay a few days later during a meeting with Stan Bates, commanding officer of the Regimental Cadet Support Unit (Pacific).
“Parents felt we should have met them when charges were laid rather than 3 days after it became public knowledge,” he wrote in an email to colleagues.
He added he could not find standard operating procedures that covered the steps to be taken when allegations become public.
(The emails were obtained through an accessto-information request by an advocate trying to raise awareness of the issue, but who requested anonymity.)
Woiden, the cadet program commander, said cadet leaders strive to give parents as much information as soon as they can. But they must also be sensitive to privacy issues and maintaining the integrity of an investigation.
Moriarty was found guilty of two counts of sexual exploitation involving a girl — over four years, she sent him at least 30 photos or videos in which she was partially or fully naked; they also had sex three times — and one count each of sexual assault and sexual touching involving a boy.
In 2012, a military judge sentenced Moriarty, then 26, to a year in jail, demoted him to second lieutenant and banished him from the Forces.
The female victim has filed a lawsuit in Federal Court, alleging the government “provided no proactive disclosure to cadets or their parents that the cadet programme has an extensive history of sexual abuse, including an extensive recent history of such incidents.”
The lawsuit, which seeks more than $1 million in damages, also accuses the government of failing to supervise and monitor Moriarty.
Ottawa denies it was negligent or breached any duty, and says Moriarty should be held “personally accountable” for his conduct.
Another Federal Court case highlights how cadets’ parents are sometimes afraid to report a problem.
In March 2011, a mother in Saskatchewan wrote to cadet leaders to notify them her 16-year-old son, a cadet at 40 Snowbird Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron in Moose Jaw, said he had been given alcohol at an instructor’s home.
The mother said she did not initially report the incident because the instructor was a family friend and she didn’t want him to lose his job. But she changed her mind when he took cadets swimming even though a parents’ committee had told him not to.
“After speaking with them, I decided that I needed to step forward ... My fear is someone’s cadet is going to get injured or worse,” she wrote.
In August 2011, the instructor was suspended. He filed a grievance, alleging harassment and abuse of authority, but the suspension was upheld.
According to court documents, the instructor had been warned by the commanding officer private relationships with cadets — going for coffee, exchanging emails and social networking — was not allowed.
Between December 2010 and August 2011, the instructor was told eight times to stop this behaviour.
Asked why nothing more had been done sooner, Woiden said he could not comment on specific cases.
However, personal relationships between staff and cadets are not permitted, “full stop.”
Even where no criminal acts occurred, disciplinary measures can be taken right up to dismissal, he added.
Eight days after the girl submitted her victim impact statement at Hammermeister’s sentencing hearing last July, the cadets program was dealt another blow.
Military authorities announced charges against Lt.-Col. Mason Stalker for sex-related offences against a boy in the army cadets. The offences were alleged to have taken place in 1998-2007 while Stalker was a mentor in the program.
At the time the charges were announced, Stalker, 40, was commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry in Edmonton. He was also a two-time recipient of the Governor General’s Meritorious Service Medal.
The allegations have not been proven in court, but if true, they follow an alltoo-familiar pattern: an exsoldier in an “enhanced position of respect,” a vulnerable young victim.
Woiden, who spent five years in the army cadets before joining the Forces, maintains the cadets are “one of the best youth programs we have in Canada.”
Robert Feist, a Saskatchewan lawyer who is representing the young woman in the lawsuit stemming from the Moriarty case, says there’s no question the cadets program does a lot of good.
“(But) each incident of sexual abuse, sexual harassment, sexual assault is dealt with as a piecemeal issue and the same response is given every time one of these incidents occurs,” he said.
Feist, an air cadet for seven years, built and managed Saskatchewan’s largest army cadet corps. He doesn’t have children, but if he did, he says, he would have to think “long and hard” before enrolling them in cadets.
“Parents don’t know when they’re putting children into the program that there’s a sexual abuse history,” he said. “Often the reporting procedures are difficult and confusing, the response procedures can have lag time, and the response procedures only seem to focus on punishing the offender, as opposed to changing the system to make it safer.”
MY ULTIMATE CONCERN … IS THAT I DON’T THINK THEY’VE EVER HAD TO LIVE UP TO OR TRULY FACE THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST. — WILL HISCOCK, LAWYER FOR FORMER CADETS