Witness testifies at trial for former priest facing sexual abuse charges
The target was a small, LONDON skinny Indigenous boy new to the church.
The six-year-old from the big family had come to St. Andrew’s Anglican Church at Chippewa of the Thames, southwest of London, on his bootlegger father’s orders to meet the priest who everyone said “was really good and awesome with kids.”
At his first service, David Norton had him spellbound.
“He was like a sight for sore eyes, if you’ve never had adults around who are child-friendly,” the now 48-year-old man said in his testimony at Norton’s Superior Court trial on sex charges.
“I fell in love with the guy right away.”
It would take years before the boy would understand the love he felt for Norton, the man he trusted and loved, the man he says molested him routinely, was a lie. While the witness laid out what happened to him between 1977 and 1983 to Superior Court Justice Lynda Templeton, Norton, 72, kept his gaze down in the prisoner’s box.
The former Anglican priest and instructor at King’s University College is already serving a fouryear term for abusing a London boy at another parish in the 1990s after pleading guilty earlier this year.
Norton pleaded not guilty to five charges — four indecent assault counts and one count of sexual assault — involving four boys in the 1970s when he was the rector of the Chippewa church. The Crown is expected to call all four complainants during the weeklong trial.
Every so often, the first witness, whose identity is protected by court order, would look over, sometimes with pity, at the man who was once his friend and idol while he described a clear-cut case of grooming. He and other youngsters in his community were easy pickings.
He hadn’t had the unconditional, emotional bonding from his parents that Norton gave him. The witness became an altar boy practically on that first day at church. The priest, he said, was “Dave,” his rock star, “soft, smooth, endearing, kind, gentle.”
There was so much to admire. Norton drove a flashy grey Toyota, not the beat up Chevys and Fords on the reserve. Norton would take the boys for rides and put them on his lap so they could steer. He took them to his property near Belmont, on camping trips to Algonquin Park and to Port Franks beach. He even took some of the church members, including the boy, to the Bahamas.
Most of all, there were sleepovers at the priest’s apartment that included everything the boy could only dream of at home: Cable TV, the video game Pong, trinkets from trips and an old phonograph record player.
And pyjamas; he’d never had them at home. He would usually sleep in his “undies” or if there was company, in his day clothes.
At the apartment, Norton would be a lot more “touchy,” holding their hands, hugging them and kissing them on the lips. There were two bedrooms, one for Norton’s mother when she was alive. The boys, usually the witness and his brother, slept with Norton.
The brother moved to the other room in later years after Norton’s mother died, but “we slept together at all times, like a man and wife sleep together.” The witness was “the favourite.”
Before they went to bed, the witness said Norton made four hard-boiled eggs for sandwiches the next day and they would each get a glass of chocolate milk. Then, Norton gave them a kiss and they would crawl into bed.
“He would wrap his arms around us and we would spoon,” he said. “He’d say ‘I love you, kid. I love you. This is how we show love.’”
In the morning, he remembers he and his brother feeling groggy and having a white, pasty substance on their faces, that, at the time, he thought was slobber. He now believes he and his brother were drugged and molested while they slept. He remembers waking up with his pyjama bottoms below his waist. He once witnessed Norton fully aroused beside him and “I was extra scared.”
Once during a sleepover when he was 13, the witness said he woke up with Norton putting the witness’s hand on Norton’s private parts. The boy said he started crying and Norton picked him up, carried him to the couch and continued the unwanted activities. When it was over, “I felt like I was going to die. I believe he was contemplating killing me at that point. I honestly believe that.” Instead, Norton dropped him, like he was ending a bad relationship. He announced he was getting married and he was moving to the Yukon.
In cross-examination by the defence, the witness was shown photos of him at Norton’s wedding. He had no memory of being there. By then, he’d turned to drugs and ran away from home. He stayed scared, full of guilt and ashamed. He visited Norton in the Yukon and several times later in London over the years. But, for the most part, he kept the secret.
One day, he said he was walking with his young daughter in Port Stanley when he saw Norton walking hand-in-hand with a little boy.
“For me, that was it,” he said about making the decision to go to the police.
He started working on healing. He quit drugs and there were at least two police interviews in 2012 and 2014, before there were charges laid.
The trial continues today.