The mother of two young girls involved in a 2009 sexual exploitation complaint against Larry Thompson says her daughters “were afraid for years.”
Court documents show the 65-year-old Thompson, who faces a variety of charges including sexual assault and kidnapping after a four-year-old girl was allegedly abducted in London on Mother’s Day, previously faced charges of sexual assault and sexual interference.
The charges stem from alleged incidents between Jan. 1, 2007, and July 28, 2008, and were withdrawn in 2009 in favour of a peace bond. None of the previous or current allegations against Thompson have been proven in court.
The complainants named on the court documents are a pair of sisters, who were nine and 12 at the time, their mother told 980 CFPL. They were attending a public school in London, where she said Thompson worked as a janitor.
“I have to admit, I was not only shocked when this happened to my girls, but I was upset. I felt betrayed.”
As a single mom, she was living with her children in the same neighbourhood as Thompson and his wife. Although she “hadn’t come to fully trust” Thompson, she says she was “definitely on the way to that.”
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“I thought they were a normal couple, somewhat older than me, and she was always coming down and bringing books for the kids.”
The Thames Valley District School board has kept quiet about the details of Thompson’s employment, breaking that silence with a statement indicating Thompson was a board employee up until 2014.
The board has refused to confirm where he worked, what job he had, or when he became an employee.
980 CFPL has asked whether the school board knew about Thompson’s peace bond, or whether they were aware of alleged incidents between him and the two sisters, who were students. The board didn’t respond to 980 CFPL’s questions, but issued a statement saying they’ve been co-operating with police and refuse to comment further.
But the mother says they must have known about the situation.
“I know they did, because I told them,” she said.
The mother is also frustrated with the criminal process; she didn’t feel like she had a chance to pursue a trial, when, according to the mother, she was told the prosecutor didn’t want her young daughters to testify.
“They weren’t going to put them on the stand. They would issue the peace bond that would ensure my girls would be safe. We weren’t given a choice.”
Now, she and her daughters continue to deal with the impact of what is alleged to have happened.
“They were afraid at school,” she explained, her voice cracking over the phone.
“Neither one of them could get through high school. They felt that when a male teacher was looking at them, that they were in danger.”
The mother says her young daughter might miss out on a promotion at work because she doesn’t have a high school diploma, and because she refuses to take adult high school classes through the public school board, which she doesn’t trust. The mother says her oldest daughter hardly leaves home.
“She’s paranoid, she didn’t know he had Facebook… She feels like he may have still been watching all along,” the mother explained, her voice trembling.
“Nobody I think understands the impact he had on them, when nobody listened.”
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