Failing children

Prince Edward OPP outside the Picton Courthouse in this Times archive image.

Three more foster parents charged with sexual crimes against children in their care

Ron Slatter professed innocence. He said he had been the target of vindictive Children’s Aid Society officials who were getting back at him for complaining about a lack of funding for foster families.

Earlier this year Slatter was charged with sexual assault, sexual interference and sexual exploitation against a child placed in his care by the CAS. Those charges were later withdrawn.

In July, The Times told the story of how Slatter was trying to restore his reputation after his name was reported in several news reports and newscasts across the region.

At the time Slatter said his crime was in “telling a dirty joke” and allowing his grown daughter to visit their Bloomfield home while they were caring for foster children.

But last week the Slatters’ troubles became much more serious.

On Friday Ron Slatter, 63, and his daughter Sherilee Slatter, 34, were each charged with an array of sexual crimes involving children placed in Slatter’s Bloomfield home.

Ron Slatter faces charges of sexual assault, sexual interference and sexual exploitation arising from complaints by a teenage girl that she was sexually assaulted in 2010 while living in foster care in the Slatter home. He is set to appear in court on November 28.

Sherilee Slatter is facing charges of sexual assault, conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, distributing child pornography and two counts of sexual exploitation. These charges arise from a complaint from a female that she had been sexually assaulted in the Slatter home in 2007 while living in foster care. Slatter was arrested in Sudbury. She will appear in a Picton court on December 5.

Meanwhile Sherilee Slatter’s former husband was also arrested and charged last week with sexual offences against a teenaged girl living in foster care in a separate Bloomfield home. Richard Fildey, 44, has been charged with sexual assault, sexual interference and sexual exploitation. These charges stem from accusations that Fildey sexually assaulted a teenage girl while she was living in a foster home in Bloomfield in 2003 and 2004. He was arrested in Cameron, Ontario. He is set to appear in Picton Court on November 21.

The latest charges raise more questions about the Children’s Aid Society of Prince Edward, specifically its ability to screen foster families and monitor the children in their care. Last year Judge Geoff Griffin said the community should demand an inquiry into the operations of the local CAS as he sentenced Joe and Janet Holm to prison sentences for sexual crimes against foster children placed in their care by the local agency.

Then, earlier this year, a 71-year-old man was convicted of sexually abusing two young girls, over the course of years. The children had been placed in the man’s home despite earlier accusations and a subsequent police investigation into claims that the man was abusing children in his care.

The local CAS has announced it will merge with Highland Shores Children’s Aid. The questions, however, will likely continue to linger over this agency until it explains what went wrong.