How did this happen?

Correction: Two young girls made allegations of abuse against their foster parent in 2005, not two boys.

They were horrific crimes. Children. Sexually abused. Over many years. By people, we entrusted to care for them. In our community.

Sadly, we may never know the full extent of these crimes or the toll exacted upon these children.

With a plea deal last week in a Picton courtroom, the last flickering hope that this community would ever get a proper reckoning of these crimes was extinguished.

William Sweet, the former Executive Director of the Prince Edward County Children’s Aid Society (CAS), was sentenced to two years probation for failing to care and provide for, supervise or protect a child. The Crown dropped ten counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and ten more counts of failing to provide the necessities of life. No jail time.

Crown prosecutor Peter Napier explained his decision saying that if it had gone to trial, it would have been “a long and drawn-out prosecution”. According to an account by Global News, Napier believed it was in the public interest to put an end to what he called a long chapter in Prince Edward County’s history and to give the community and the victims in the case some closure.

I emphatically disagree. These were unspeakably appalling crimes perpetrated against vulnerable children enabled by the very institution established to protect them. If any crime merits a long and drawn-out prosecution, it is this one. When our public agencies fail so badly that it results in such vile crimes, it surely warrants an extensive probe—if for no other purpose than to determine that children now in its care are safe.

We should know the impact of this failure on those who must carry it for the rest of their lives. We owe it to these children, and to future wards of the state, to find out what went wrong here. So that it never happens again.

In 2011, foster parents Joe and Janet Holm were convicted and imprisoned for, as one victim described it to the court, operating their Bloomfield home as a “sex cult.” The court heard that teenaged children, who had been removed from troubled homes by the CAS, were placed in the care of the Holms where they “were coerced into sexual and drinking games, pornographic photoshoots and oral sex.”

When sentencing the Holms, Justice Geoff Griffin said this community should demand a public inquiry into Prince Edward County’s Children’s Aid Society. He found it difficult to believe this institution didn’t know what was going on inside this home for at least nine years prior.

His call went unheeded. Then more victims surfaced. More treacherous foster homes were unearthed.

The truly tragic bit is that there were plenty of warning signs. Indeed, six years earlier, the CAS had investigated the claims of two girls who said another foster parent had sexually abused them. The agency looked into the allegations. They were serious enough to bring the OPP in to investigate. The CAS concluded that the chances of conviction were slim—after all, this was the word of young girls against an adult man. Perhaps more understandably, they felt the trauma of a trial outweighed the pursuit of an unlikely conviction. The boys were, instead, placed in another home.

What happened next, however, will never be forgiven. Can never be.

Despite the massive red flag raised by these allegations, the CAS continued to place vulnerable kids into this predator’s home. At least a dozen more boys and girls were sent to live in Roy Minister’s Bloomfield home in the years after the boys’ complaint. It would take five more years and fresh charges of sexual abuse before the CAS finally removed children from this home.

Minister was convicted in 2015 and sentenced to nine years in prison.

By then, the Prince Edward CAS had collapsed under mounting criticism from the public and scrutiny from the province. In November 2012, Highland Shores Children’s Aid Society assumed control of the County agency. Sweet was out. Highland Shores was keen to turn the page. If the incoming agency was interested in learning how deep the rot had reached in the Prince Edward CAS, it had no intention of sharing it with the public.

Other children came forward with stories of abuse in County foster homes. Altogether, five CAS foster parents were convicted of sexually abusing children in their care and sentenced to prison terms. There are most certainly more abused children whose voices were never heard. Likely many more. In 2015, five victims sued the Prince Edward CAS and the foster families for $14 million. The agency reached an out-of-court settlement on the condition the victims never disclose the terms of the agreement.

Blocked at every turn, it seemed Sweet’s trial might be the last best chance for this community to find out what went so wrong inside this agency.

The Prince Edward County CAS had reason to believe some foster parents were abusing children in their care. They had reports from other foster parents. From the children themselves. It all fell on deaf ears. For years on end.

How did this happen? It remains a burning question a decade later. No less relevant and demanding of an answer as it was in 2011.

“What took place here is so outrageous that it boggles the mind,” said Justice Griffins. “This is so troubling that it becomes difficult to put into words how horrendous it is. I hope the public demands there be a wholesale inquiry about what took place,” said Griffin.

The public demanded, but no inquiry ever came.

Last week a Crown prosecutor decided it was in the public interest to close this chapter—”to give the community and the victims in the case some closure.”

It seems unlikely, however, that there can be closure for the children who endured this abuse by the agency tasked to protect them. How on earth do they get past this fundamental breach of trust? Ever? Without answers? Without explanation?

On what basis should we trust the CAS to care for vulnerable children now? With no explanation of the disease, how far it’s progressed, and how much rot remains after treatment? How are we to know how sick this agency really is? Sweeping it all away under the banality of “closure” seems wildly inadequate.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca