OPP Investigated probation officer

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OPP investigated probation officer
Cornwall Public Inquiry
Posted By TREVOR PRITCHARD, STANDARD-FREEHOLDER
Posted 15 hours ago


The Ontario Provincial Police investigated now-deceased probation officer Nelson Barque more than a decade before he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a teenage boy, the Cornwall Public Inquiry heard Friday.

Det. Const. Chris McDonell testified one of his former colleagues at the OPP's Lancaster detachment, Const. Terry Seguin, looked into allegations against Barque in 1980 or 1981.

No other witness at the long-running sexual abuse inquiry has said anything about the OPP investigating Barque -- who committed suicide in 1998 - in the early 1980s.

However, Barque's one-time supervisor, Peter Sirrs, testified last November that he contacted both the Cornwall police and the RCMP in 1982 after hearing complaints about Barque.

Barque resigned from the Cornwall probation office that year, after Sirrs' investigation revealed he was having sex with at least two probationers and providing them drugs and alcohol. Three years later, Barque was convicted of indecent assault.

"Were you aware (of) the circumstances under which he left (the probation office)?" inquiry commissioner Normand Glaude asked McDonell.

"Yes, I was," said McDonell.

"And how did you find that out?" asked Glaude.

"Because they originated out of Lancaster," said McDonell. "I knew the officer that investigated it."

No details emerged Friday about the depth of Const. Seguin's investigation.

McDonell spent 26 years at the Lancaster detachment before retiring in 1999. He is now the deputy mayor of North Glengarry.

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Commission lawyers were asking McDonell about Barque because his name had come up during the retired officer's 1993-94 investigation into another probation officer, Ken Seguin.

Before he committed suicide in November 1993, Ken Seguin had also been suspected of sexually abusing probationers.

McDonell investigated his death and, later, extortion allegations made by Ken Seguin's family against David Silmser, one of the probation officer's alleged victims.

One of the people McDonell interviewed was Jos van Diepen, who had been a colleague of both Barque and Ken Seguin.

According to records of the February 1994 interview, van Diepen said he "always felt (Barque and Ken Seguin) had a little thing going" and that he "didn't know if they were gay but they acted differently."

Inquiry lawyer Karen Jones asked why McDonell didn't look closer into the "unsavory things" he was hearing about Barque.

McDonell said he figured van Diepen was talking about his colleague's earlier investigation.

"But it's not 100 per cent clear, is it?" asked Jones. "There's a possibility there could have been other sexual misconduct on the part of Nelson Barque being revealed to you in February 1994, but you didn't do any further investigation on that."

"No I did not," said McDonell.

After Ken Seguin's death, his family complained to the OPP about McDonell, saying his investigation into his suicide had been biased.

Nevertheless, McDonell was still assigned to look into the extortion allegations against Silmser, who had called Ken Seguin the night before he died.

Citizens for Community Renewal attorney Juda Strawczynski asked McDonell -- who said he never knew of the family's complaints -- whether he felt it was appropriate to be assigned the extortion case.

"I always did what I was told or asked," said McDonell. "If they asked me to go on it, I would go on it."

Neither the abuse allegations against Ken Seguin, nor the claims of extortion involving Silmser, were ever proven in court.

The inquiry resumes Nov. 10 with a new witness.

Article ID# 1276297