BATTLEFORD, Sask. – A Saskatchewan judge will rule next week on whether a former supervisor at a residential school molested several students in the 1960s.
Paul Leroux, 72, pleaded not guilty to indecent assault involving about a dozen former students at the Beauval Indian Residential School in the 1960s.
Leroux, who represented himself at his trial, denied all the charges against him in his final arguments on Tuesday.
He said one incident of sexual abuse couldn’t possibly have happened because the room one complainant alleges he was molested in didn’t exist at the time.
Leroux said another alleged incident at a Saskatoon hotel couldn’t have happened because he never travelled to Saskatoon with the school’s choir or stayed in a hotel with them.
Crown prosecutor Mitch Piche said the discrepancies Leroux pointed out were nit-picking and he thought witness testimony was very detailed, given how long ago it happened.
The judge will hand down his decision on Nov. 5.
Leroux was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1998 for abusing 14 boys and young men at Grollier Hall, a residential school in Inuvik run by the Roman Catholic Church.
Those convictions were for gross indecency, indecent assault and attempted buggery between 1967 and 1979.
Leroux worked as an activities supervisor and guidance counsellor at Grollier.
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