Orphanage allegedly victimized boys in B.C.

VANCOUVER — A lawsuit alleges that a Catholic congregation shuffled abusive teachers from a notorious orphanage in Newfoundland to two schools in the Vancouver area where more boys were victimized.

The proposed class-action suit filed Monday in B.C. Supreme Court asserts that between 1976 and 1983, six known abusers were transferred from Mount Cashel Orphanage to Vancouver College and St. Thomas More Collegiate.

The lawsuit says one of the six men confessed to abusing children at Mount Cashel before he was transferred, and all six were later convicted of sexually or physically abusing orphans at the facility in St. John’s.

The statement of claim from the proposed representative plaintiff says he attended Vancouver College from 1980 to 1985, for Grades 8 to 12, and was sexually abused by the man who had confessed years earlier.

Non statements of defence have been filed and the defendants could not immediately be reached for comment.

The lawsuit names a number of defendants, including Vancouver College, St. Thomas More Collegiate, senior officials of the Christian Brothers, the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corp. of St. John’s, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver and the Catholic Independent Schools of Vancouver Archdiocese.

If a judge certifies the lawsuit as classaction, the plaintiff would represent students of Vancouver College and St. Thomas More Collegiate who were allegedly physically or sexually abused at those schools between 1976 and 1995.