Three teens plead guilty in Toronto school sex assaults
ST. MICHAEL’S COLLEGE Boys attacked with broomstick in locker-room
TORONTO • Three ex-football players at an elite Toronto private school pleaded guilty Thursday to sexually assaulting a classmate in one of a string of locker-room attacks.
The teens, all members of the St. Michael’s College School junior football team, admitted to participating in three separate assaults at the school, including two where classmates were pinned down, stripped, then anally penetrated with a broom.
All three teens pleaded guilty to one charge each of sexual assault with a weapon and one lesser, related charge of assault with a weapon. One of the three, who filmed two of the attacks, admitted to a third count of making child pornography.
The young men, none of whom can be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, stood in a cramped courtroom on the second floor of a Toronto courthouse Thursday as a crown attorney read the agreed facts of their crimes into the record.
Erin McNamara told the court the three attacks took place during the 2018 fall football season at St. Michael’s, an all-boys private school with a string of high-profile alumni, where tuition runs more than $22,000 a year.
The first attack took place in September, after practice. The teens were in their locker-room, in the basement of the school in the tony Forest Hill neighbourhood of north Toronto. The victim was talking to a teammate when he was surrounded, picked up by his arms and legs and swung around. His teammates pinned him to the floor, flipped him onto to his stomach, and pulled down his pants. “Get the broom!” people yelled before someone struck him several times with a hard object on his buttocks.
A video of that attack later spread through the school showing one of the three teens who pleaded guilty Thursday, a team leader and veteran, standing over the victim wielding a broom.
A month later, after a game, a second member of the team was attacked in the locker-room. He tried to run away, McNamara said, but someone tripped him and what he later described as a “mob of captains” held him down. They pulled his pants down then someone shoved a broom into him repeatedly as other members of the team stood around him yelling and cheering.
Another one of the teens who pleaded guilty Thursday filmed that attack, but he deleted the video after the victim begged him to.
The final attack took place on the day of the junior football championship game in November. St. Michael’s, traditionally a football powerhouse, won the game. In the locker-room, not long after getting their championship medals, members of the victorious squad attacked a third classmate.
The victim that day wasn’t even a member of the football team. He went into the locker-room looking for a ride home, according to the agreed statement. Once inside, he was grabbed and held down. A video taken by one of the teens who pleaded guilty shows the other two tearing at his clothing and ripping his underwear apart.
Two different teens then penetrated him with the broom as the victim struggled and yelled at them to stop.
The video taken that day spread around St. Michael’s storied campus. Within weeks, eight students had been expelled from the school and another suspended. The school principal and president both resigned. By late December, police had charged seven students, most of them 15 years old, with sexual assault.
The Crown dismissed the charges against one of the seven earlier this year. Two others have had their cases resolved, though the exact details of that resolution are unclear. One more member of the team is still facing charges. He’s set to appear in court on Oct. 17. The three teens who pleaded guilty Thursday are due back in court on Nov. 14 for a sentencing hearing.
Speaking outside the courthouse after the guilty pleas, Rachel Lichtman, the lawyer for one of the teens, said it had been “a really difficult day for all involved.”
“Three really strong youths stepped up and took responsibility for their behaviour. They took responsibility for their actions,” she said. “And we all need to remember that in Canada we have a separate youth criminal justice system. And that’s for a reason.”
Lichtman said the teens involved were young and “couldn’t appreciate their behaviours.” She said that schools, and society as a whole, need to work on better educating kids so they know “what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate.”
When asked by a reporter from the Toronto Sun whether teens really need to be specifically told that sexually assaulting classmates with a broomstick is wrong, she replied: “does anyone else have any questions?”
A REALLY DIFFICULT DAY FOR ALL INVOLVED ... THEY TOOK RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS.