Court hears of horrific allegations of abuse

Three witnesses testified about their involvement in allegations of sexual abuse and torture in a civil trial against the Yukon government on Tuesday.

Three witnesses testified about their involvement in allegations of sexual abuse and torture in a civil trial against the Yukon government on Tuesday.

The first witness was a woman who is a defendant in the case.

The woman, 42, cannot be identified under a court-ordered publication ban.

She was a government ward from the time she was three years old until she turned 18. Between the ages of 10 and 14, she lived in a group home with several boys who assaulted her repeatedly, she testified in Yukon Supreme Court.

A boy who was a year older than herself repeatedly forced himself on her, said the woman.

She described him as a “wild kid. Like a coyote, almost. He was sneaky. He was bossy. He did bad things.“

The woman said he first penetrated her when she was only 10 years old and forced her to touch his genitals.

“I feared him. I was his plaything,“ she said.

The boy also made her run errands and do favours for him, or else, she said, he would tell others what she had “let” him do to her.

The boy also forced the three other boys in the group home, who ranged in age from eight to 12, to assault the woman while he watched.

The assaults occurred regularly, about three or four times a week, she testified.

The woman said that when she was 12, she contracted a vaginal infection that felt like “an itch I couldn’t scratch.“

Despite the repeated assaults and the infection, the woman said, neither the parents at the group home nor her social worker interfered in the situation or asked her questions.

The woman told the court she tried to tell the mother of the group home and the mother’s sister what was being done to her, but was told she was a “cheeky little girl.“

“They just silenced it and continued doing what they were doing.“

The woman testified she often ran away from the group home.

“You don’t hang around where you’re not wanted,“ she said. “I was irrelevant. I was just another face to feed.“

The woman also described the abuse and torture she inflicted on a little boy she would babysit for, beginning in about 1978, when she was 13.

“I’d be pretty rough with him. I would torture him. I would torment him just to watch him cry. I thought I was making him tough,“ she said.

She described making the five-year-old boy smoke cigarettes, dunking his head under water in the bathtub, and hanging him upside from the clay cliffs in Whitehorse.

She also described sexual abuse she inflicted on the boy, including fondling, simulated sex, and placing the boy’s face between her legs.

“I tried to get him to do oral sex,“ she said. “But he would not have any part of it.“

The woman became emotional while testifying and said she is sorry for what she did.

“I stunted his growth as a man,“ she said.

“I wanted somebody else to feel my pain. I wanted to put them through what I was going through,“ the woman said when asked why she behaved the way she did.

A 37-year-old man who lived in the same group home as the woman back in the 1970s took the stand Tuesday afternoon.

He referred to the older boy at the group home as a “pretty abusive guy.

“He would make me have intercourse with her and make me go down on her,“ the man testified, referring to the female defendant.

The man was eight years old at the time.

The man also testified that the older boy would force the others to perform oral sex on him, and that he would sodomize the other boys, one of whom was the man’s brother.

“It occurred dozens of times,“ the man testified.

He said he tried to tell the father of the group home about what was going on, although he said he didn’t go into details because he was too embarrassed.

The father said he would talk to the older boy, but the man said nothing changed.

“Everything just kept going on,“ he testified.

The man’s mother was the final witness to testify Tuesday.

She said she left her two sons in the government’s care for a few months while she was going through a rough period, and was shocked when she overheard them arguing about their living conditions during a visit.

She confronted the group home’s father and said she was “very upset. I trusted you.“

She also told the father she had signed a form saying she could trust the government to care for her children, and that she was considering contacting social services officials.

The father said it was unnecessary, and that he would take care of the problem, the woman testified.

But the man’s mother never followed up on the situation to find out if the abuse had discontinued. No social worker was ever called, she testified.

Justice John Richard is presiding over the case, which is scheduled to continue for most of the rest of the month.