Priest facing sex charges hospitalized with cancer
An Anglican priest accused of historical sexual assaults against teenage boys in an Edmonton youth jail is hospitalized and undergoing cancer treatment, court heard Wednesday.
Gordon William Dominey was not present at a provincial court appearance on some of his more recent charges. A law student attending on behalf of his defence lawyer, Kent Teskey, told court that the 65-year-old is undergoing treatment for cancer.
The initial charges Dominey faces date back to the 1980s when investigators say Dominey worked as a priest at the now-demolished Edmonton Youth Development Centre (YDC). When police first announced the charges in February 2016, five complainants had come forward with allegations of abuse. At the time of the alleged offences, the complainants were between 14 and 17 years old.
After the allegations went public, police laid additional historic charges against Dominey. There are now 15 complainants and 30 criminal charges, according to court records. The 65-year-old is scheduled to be arraigned in August on the earliest set of charges related to 12 complainants, while preliminary hearings are scheduled for the three more recent rounds of allegations in late 2018.
In an email Wednesday, Teskey declined to comment further on Dominey’s health, but said he doesn’t expect his client will attend the August hearing.
After being released on bail following his arrest, Dominey returned to British Columbia where he lives and had worked as a priest. He was put on administrative leave from his post at St. Catherine’s Anglican Church in North Vancouver.
Edmonton police confirmed Wednesday that the investigation in the case remains open.
CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT
The lawyer representing one of the complainants who has filed a civil suit against Dominey, his church and the Government of Alberta, said he is aware of the priest’s medical condition.
“It’s been causing some complications, but it is our intent to move forward on this,” lawyer Avnish Nanda said Wednesday.
Nanda’s client — a middle-aged man who lives in British Columbia and who was incarcerated in the Edmonton detention centre as a teen — is seeking to have the action certified as a class-action suit, which would allow him to represent all persons who claim to have been abused by Dominey while in YDC.
Nanda said their position is that Dominey had “full rein” of the youth facility and was subject to little oversight.
He also said they will allege that youth incarcerated in the jail were encouraged to seek out Dominey’s services, which is among the reasons why the Government of Alberta and the Anglican Diocese of Edmonton are also named as defendants.
“You would imagine that at a prison — a prison for children — that they would have sufficient oversight to ensure that such abuses not occur,” Nanda said.
A date for the next hearing in the civil case has yet to be scheduled.