Stuckless acted like father figure, trial told
Maple Leaf Gardens sex abuser brought boys into arena for hockey games, got them autographs from players, witness says
Gordon Stuckless positioned himself as a father figure to his young victims, calling them “good boys” and telling them he loved them, a court heard Wednesday, as the latest trial for the convicted pedophile and former Maple Leaf Gardens employee began.
Stuckless was found guilty in 1997 of sexually assaulting at least 24 boys while working as an usher at Maple Leaf Gardens between 1969 and 1988, and served two-thirds of a five-year prison sentence before being released in 2001.
Several men have come forward since then, alleging Stuckless also abused them when they were young.
Stuckless was sentenced to another 6 1⁄ years in prison in 2016 after pleading
2 guilty to 100 charges related to the sexual abuse of 18 boys in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.
The charges he now faces, which include multiple counts of buggery, sexual assault, gross indecency and uttering death threats, are connected to the alleged abuse of three boys between 1978 and 1984, while Stuckless was an usher at Maple Leaf Gardens.
Stuckless has pleaded not guilty to all the current charges, and his main opposition is to the buggery allegations, his lawyer Ari Goldkind said.
On Wednesday morning, a 51-yearold witness, whose identity is protected by the court, testified that Stuckless violated him at least 100 times over the course of about a year, around 1978 to 1979, when the wit- ness was about 13 years old.
Stuckless had caught the witness and his friends sneaking into the Gardens before a hockey game and told them he could get them into games and concerts any time they wanted, the witness said.
The boys returned to the Gardens within a week. Stuckless led them to a sauna room in the arena and began fondling them and touching their privates, the witness testified.
Stuckless, short and heavy, with grey hair and a thin grey moustache, leaned forward and shifted in his seat as the witness described in often graphic detail the various sexual acts, including molestation, oral sex and rape, which Stuckless allegedly perpetrated on the witness and his friends.
Stuckless often gave the boys hockey memorabilia like sticks and gloves, and arranged for them to get autographs from visiting teams, the witness said.
It seemed at the time like Stuckless cared about the boys, the witness said, and spoke to them like a father would. “It felt great,” the witness testified, adding that he didn’t know his own father and that “a lot of us didn’t get” that kind of care at home.
Stuckless “smoked drugs” with the boys and gave them pop and snacks, which may have been laced with drugs, the witness said, adding that he sometimes felt drowsy after having the food Stuckless gave him.
Sometimes George Hannah, equipment manager for the Toronto Marlboros junior hockey team, took part in the abuse, the witness said. Hannah, who died in 1984, has previously been accused by Toronto police of participating with Stuckless in child sex abuse at the Gardens.
Stuckless told the boys that what they were doing was “OK” and “nothing to be ashamed of,” but also said they would get into trouble if they told anyone what was going on, the witness testified.
The witness spent years struggling with drug and alcohol addiction as a result of the abuse he allegedly experienced, he testified.
He has a criminal record and has spent time in several Ontario jails, he said.
The witness “buried” his experiences with Stuckless for nearly 20 years, until he ran into Stuckless inside a Brampton jail in “1996 or1997,” he added.
“It triggered my memory,” the witness said. “I started having nightmares, flashbacks, that (I still have).”
The Crown is scheduled to call two other witnesses to testify about the abuse Stuckless allegedly perpetrated against them.