Assault Victim Launches Grievance Against RCMP

Assault Victim Launches Grievance Against RCMP

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 at 14:55

A woman from Dillon has launched a complaint against the RCMP over how it handled allegations against a disgraced former priest.

The woman was one of the victims of Reverend Norbert Dufault, but can’t be identified because of a court-imposed publication ban.

Dufault pleaded guilty last year to eight charges of indecent assault for acts committed in the 1950s and 60s while he was a priest in the area, and was sentenced to two years in a federal penitentiary.

The RCMP Complaints Commission is investigating the woman’s allegations that her complaint against Dufault in the mid-1990s wasn’t taken seriously by some former officers stationed at Buffalo Narrows at the time.

She says the ball got rolling on the investigation into Dufault’s activities only after she took her complaint to an Aboriginal RCMP officer.