How Could You? Hall of Shame-Canada-Brandon Group Home Owner

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Brandon, Canada, “a mentally challenged woman says she was repeatedly raped 20 years ago by a man who ran a Brandon support home.

The man has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual assault and has been on trial in Brandon Court of Queen’s Bench since Monday. A publication ban is in effect on anything that could identify the complainants.

During cross-examination, defence lawyer Joseph Pelletier suggested the woman was confused and the assaults may never have happened.

“No, you remember these things, they’re with you the rest of your damn life… I was just a damn child,” the witness responded.

It’s alleged two mentally challenged complainants were assaulted while living at a support home run by the accused; the first in 1985 and the second in 1997.

Crown and defence lawyers agree the accused was in a position of trust and authority over the complainants at the times of the alleged offences.

The first complainant — who said she was 18 to 19 years old when she was assaulted — testified she was sent to the home in the mid-1990s after running away from her parents.

She ran to friends of her father’s, but they couldn’t keep her because they didn’t have a proper room. So she was placed in the Brandon support home, which was run by a couple.

The witness said she had a good relationship with the woman who ran the home. But that woman left her partner and the home, leaving him in charge. She said that’s when the assaults began.

“He was supposed to take care of us girls,” the witness said.

She testified she was repeatedly raped by the man and he forced her to perform oral sex on him.

The man would continue the assaults even though she told him to stop, and he would say she was going to “take it” and “like it.”

She once tried to barricade her bedroom door with her bed, but it had wheels and he pushed it out of the way.

The assaults would be committed at night, she said, and to prevent them she’d try to quickly do her chores so that she could take baths during the day, while the man was still at work.

But she couldn’t always get into the bathroom, which was shared with two other girls who also lived at the home.

Finally, to escape the assaults, she ran away to Winnipeg.

She testified she didn’t tell anyone because she was scared and tried to forget it. Years later, Brandon police started an investigation based on other complaints and contacted her, and she revealed what had happened.”

Brandon man on trial for alleged abuse at group home [Winnipeg Free Press 3/30/17 by Ian Hitchen]

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