Lock him up for life
EX-NHL star demands life term for former junior coach who sexually abused him
Theo Fleury (left) doesn’t think Graham James should spend any more time as a free man, as sentencing commences for the sex offender
Former NHL star Theoren Fleury asked the courts Tuesday to sentence former junior hockey coach Graham James to life in jail.
In an emotional victim-impact statement, Fleury called James — appearing in Winnipeg court for his sentencing hearing — a “monster” who took advantage of a young boy’s trust, helplessness and hockey dream.
“Do not show leniency to Graham James,” he said. “He certainly never did to me or any of his other prey.”
Fleury, who is in Vancouver to host the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards on Friday, described the trauma and lingering devastation of sexual abuse at the hands of James.
“I was just a kid. A child. I was completely under Graham James’s control. And I was scared,” he said, estimating he was abused more than 150 times.
“I did not have the emotional skills, the knowledge or the ability to stop the rapes or change my circumstances.”
James was “purposeful” in planning the assaults, said Fleury: “He will do it again and again and again if ever given the chance. He has no remorse.”
Fleury said he felt “lost, alone, and helpless,” and that those feelings haunted him for more than two decades, driving him into drug addiction, alcoholism, sex addiction, gambling and rage.
It also drove him near suicide, to the New Mexico desert “with a gun in my mouth and finger on the trigger,” he said.
Fleury first publicized the longwhispered allegations of abuse by James in a 2009 biography. In January 2010, he filed a criminal complaint against the 59-year-old former coach of the Moose Jaw Warriors, Swift Current Broncos and Calgary Hitmen junior hockey teams.
Last December, James admitted in court to molesting Fleury between 1983 and 1985 in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
He also pleaded guilty to abusing another man, Todd Holt, in separate instances in the 1980s and ’90s. Charges related to a third alleged victim were stayed.
James was imprisoned for 3½ years in 1997 after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting another former NHL player, Sheldon Kennedy, and another unnamed player an estimated 350 times over 10 years.
He served 18 months in prison before applying for, and receiving, a pardon in 2007 that allowed him to coach hockey in Spain and live in Mexico until his return to Canada in October 2010.
On Tuesday, Kennedy had predicted James would receive a conditional sentence, despite admitting to the two new sexual assault charges.
Pedophiles like James “are devoid of anything good,” and should be locked away from society, said Fleury, calling child sexual abuse an “epidemic.”
Court should not only consider the law when determining the appropriate sentence for James, he said, but also the effect James’s actions had on his victims.
“I urge this court to set an example, not only for other offenders, but to those who have been victimized.”