Yukon knew of abuse, teacher says
French instructor translated at 1984 hearing three years before principal was arrested
A retired Whitehorse teacher says Yukon government lawyers knew about alleged sexual abuse of at least one student by her former principal nearly three years before he was arrested and removed from his school, but she was ordered to keep it quiet.
Sandra Henderson was a teacher at a Whitehorse elementary school in 1984. She had successfully campaigned to have a French immersion program created at the school when the man, identified in court documents only as “J.V.,” took over as principal.
In the spring of 1984, Henderson said she was subpoenaed to act as a French-language translator in a hearing over allegations that J.V. had sexually abused a child in his foster care.
When she received the subpoena, Henderson said she had no idea of the scope of the allegations. She said she doesn’t know what was said before or after the hearing she translated and whether any other proceedings took place after the hearing or the final outcome of the case.
She said she clearly remembers at the outset of the hearing being told by Yukon government lawyers in the room that anything said was confidential and she was legally prevented from revealing it.
“I was sworn to secrecy, confidentiality. And that’s where I learned about (J.V.),” she said.
Henderson, now 78, said she knew the child in question as a student.
“He was a bright young man. I can still see his face.”
He had been placed in J.V.’s foster care because his biological mother had been convicted of drug charges, she said.
A source with knowledge of the case, who asked not to be named for legal reasons, confirmed the child in question was taken into J.V.’s care, though they were not involved in the hearing about sexual-assault allegations and had no knowledge of it.
During that hearing, Henderson said the child’s mother accused J.V. of sexually abusing her son in the shower. After the hearing, Henderson said J.V. returned to work.
It would be almost three more years before J.V. was arrested and charged in 1987 with sexually assaulting five other children — he was afoster parent to three of them, and a youth group leader to another.
He pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to five years for each count, to be served concurrently. He now lives outside of Whitehorse on a large rural property.
J.V. is also at the centre of a series of lawsuits filed against him, and the Yukon government alleges he sexually assaulted at least six other children, some of whom were his students. Many of his alleged victims struggle to keep their lives together. J.V. declined to comment. The Yukon government said it would not comment on the decisions of a past government, or how a particular personnel matter was han- dled 33 years ago.
“If allegations of abuse were to be brought forward today, our government would take immediate action,” Sunny Patch, the government’s cabinet office spokesperson, said in an emailed statement.
That action would include removing the employee from the workplace immediately and working closely with the RCMP on an investigation, the statement said.
In a statement, the government said it has faced roughly 40 lawsuits over sexual abuse at the hands of government employees, and paid about $2.5 million to settle them.
The child in the case Henderson translated for is not a part of the criminal charges against J.V., and is not part of any of the lawsuits that the Star is aware of.
Henderson said before the hearing took place, J.V. told her she should try to get out of it.
After the hearing, Henderson said J.V. subjected her to a campaign of bullying and intimidation that ultimately forced her to change schools.
“He went to great lengths to get me out of his school. He said I was too difficult to work with, I was this, I was that,” she said.
At one point, Henderson said she discovered a handmade mock-up of a passport calling her a “frog” and insisting she should move to France. She was so upset she turned the passport over to the RCMP, she said.
“It was so disgusting, so racist.”
The final straw came when J.V. created a petition calling for Henderson to be moved to another school. He got some of the other staff at the school to sign it, Henderson said, including some who had followed him from his previous posting at a different elementary school.
She said some staff who signed the petition were close friends of J.V.’s and would get special treatment, such as 10 days off to go hunting. “Sandra Henderson couldn’t get five days off to go to my mother’s funeral. Some of these people were his favourites, and they may have known. That’s the difference,” she said. In November 2015 Henderson wrote to Piers McDonald, who was education minister at the time of the J.V. hearing. She explained in full why she feels she was targeted by J.V. for removal from the school.
A week later, McDonald wrote back, commending Henderson for her many accomplishments as a Yukon teacher and acknowledging the “controversial implications surrounding the decision to make the transfer over your objections.” His letter said he did not know she had played a role in the J.V. hearing.
Henderson still gives private French lessons to students in Whitehorse. She carried the knowledge of what J.V. is alleged to have done for years, scarred — she says — by his bullying and her inability to tell anyone about it.
“I didn’t even tell my husband.”