A Supreme Court of Canada decision in an Alberta case of historical sexual abuse is underlining how courts are required to handle sexual offences against children.
Paul Sheppard was ordered to surrender to authorities in April — roughly two months after he was granted full parole — when the Supreme Court unanimously allowed a Crown appeal that restored his original six-year sentence, handed down in 2021.
Sheppard, now in his 60s, was found guilty of sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching. The victim is Steacy Easton. The abuse happened in the early 1990s, when Easton was a Grade 7 student at the now-defunct Saint John’s School of Alberta in the community of Genesee, where Sheppard was a teacher.
The Supreme Court released its reasons for judgment on Friday, finding numerous issues in the 2023 Alberta Court of Appeal decision that reduced Sheppard’s sentence to slightly less than four years.
Among those issues, Chief Justice Richard Wagner wrote, is the way the appeal court’s majority decision refers to “myths and stereotypes” about sexual abuse complainants.
“In particular, the law no longer tolerates any suggestion that the complainant is less credible because they did not confront their abuser. … There is no single or expected way for victims of sexual abuse to behave,” he said.
The reasons also conclude Sheppard has a “pattern of abusing children while in a position of power,” something that wasn’t revealed during his trial or his appeal.
Easton was granted a court application to lift the publication ban on their name in 2021.
“The appeal document was so egregious, and so retrograde, and so much of an actual attack at my expense that it feels like a necessary correction, which I’m grateful for,” they said in an interview Friday.
But Easton added it’s difficult to come to terms with the court process — proceeding for years beyond the actual trial — and how little say they had about any of it.
“I’m glad that I’m believed, and I’m glad that this ‘perfect victims’ thing is sort of slowly being dismantled,” they said. “But I think the process still takes away any autonomy of the victim.”
During the Supreme Court hearing in April, Wagner also questioned defence lawyer Brian Beresh about criminal convictions in Sheppard’s past.
Sheppard was accused of sexual assault and assault against young boys in the mid-1980s when he briefly worked as a police officer in Stratford, Ont. He pleaded guilty to six counts of assault in 1987 in exchange for the court dropping the sexual assault charges.
That was never revealed during his 2021 trial, and both the original sentencing decision and appeal decision note that he had no prior criminal record. But Parole Board of Canada decisions about Sheppard do note his 1987 convictions.
Court granted leniency to teacher who was a serial child abuser
Wagner pointed out that Beresh had asked his client on the stand during his trial whether he had a prior conviction.
“You ask him the question — he’s the one who knows — he said no. Is that perjury?”
Beresh replied, “I suggest it isn’t,” saying he also didn’t know about any prior criminal record.
Sheppard additionally faced sexual abuse charges stemming from his time at a boarding school in the United Kingdom. He was found not guilty in 2015.
The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights was the sole intervener in the Supreme Court case.
Chief general counsel Angela Marinos argued that the Alberta Court of Appeal decision incorrectly relied on 10 misconceptions about sexual violence, such as viewing the complainant as potentially less credible because they’ve been in therapy.
“In my almost 25 years of practice, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a decision that seems so ignorant and misguided,” she told CBC News. “It feels like something from ancient times.”
Marinos said it’s significant that the Supreme Court’s reasons specified that historical sexual offences against children “are no less grave, and demand no less accountability, than ones committed today.”
The reasons also say sentencing should be viewed “through the lens” of the Supreme Court’s 2020 Friesen decision, which directed that sentences for sexual offences against children must increase.
“For survivors of sexual violence and for children whose trust has been broken, it may take a lifetime to heal that rupture,” Marinos said. “And no legal decision can truly repair that because there’s limits to what a judgment can accomplish.
“But what I’m trying to say is that to the extent that a judgment can be a form of a balm, I think this is that balm.”
