‘You are a selfish demon’: Ex-priest pleads guilty to assaulting children
Victims, family members offer emotional statements at trial of former Roman Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger
Ex-Roman Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger enters the Iqaluit courthouse Thursday to plead guilty to six sex-related charges involving children. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
Former Roman Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger pleaded guilty in an Iqaluit courtroom Thursday to six charges of indecent assault involving six children more than 40 years ago.
One by one, the four surviving victims of these charges — now in their 50s — and their family members stood in court to tell Dejaeger to his face how his crimes hurt them then and continue to do so.
“When the prosecution first contacted me, I started envying the dead,” one of the victims said. “They can’t feel the pain.”
“This shame and guilt is not ours,” another said. “I give it back to you.”
When she finished, she walked to the middle of the courtroom and drum danced briefly.
By the end of Thursday’s proceedings, two buckets that were brought especially for the victims at the start of the day were filled with tear-stained tissues.
The charges against Dejaeger, 78, relate to his time working as an Oblate priest in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982. He had also been charged with two counts of having sex outside marriage without consent, however those offences no longer exist in the Criminal Code and the charges were withdrawn by the Crown on Thursday.
Dejaeger was charged in June 2023 after he was arrested by police in Kingston, Ont., on a Canada-wide warrant.
Previously, in 2015, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison after being convicted on 32 charges, mostly involving sexual molestation of children in Igloolik, including indecent assault, sexual assault, forcible confinement and bestiality.
Dejaeger was released from prison in 2022 at the age of 75 by the Parole Board of Canada.
With these latest convictions, six more people have been added to the official list of his victims, which is believed to number about 30 including those involved in his earlier crimes.
Two victims from the latest charges died before they had the chance to face their abuser in court, Crown prosecutor Emma Baasch said.
Most of the victims were between four and nine years old when they were assaulted by Dejaeger, Baasch said, while reading an agreed-upon statement of facts. Now middle-aged adults, they and their family members filled the courtroom in Iqaluit this week. The trial started Monday and was expected to last two weeks, but on Tuesday Dejaeger’s lawyer Scott Cowan said the priest would plead guilty on Thursday.
There were more than 25 people in the courtroom Thursday, some crying and holding boxes of tissues.
“I want to see him come in,” one of the victims said before the start of the proceedings. “And for him to see that we are not scared.”
When Dejaeger was brought into the courtroom, she stood and shouted at him in Inuktitut.
Baasch read out the facts of each assault, describing them in detail.
She said Dejaeger would tell the children that they would “go to hell” or that “Jesus wouldn’t accept them” if they ever told anyone about what he did to them.
Eight impact statements from Dejaeger’s victims and their family members were read out in court.
“I hope you recognize her,” one of the victims yelled at Dejaeger, showing him a black-and-white photo of her five-year-old self.
“I hope you rot in hell,” another victim said. “You are a selfish demon.”
Dejaeger, a balding, grey-haired man, was seated at a table with his lawyer about four metres from the spectators, facing them. He sat silent and calm during the entire proceeding, which enraged some of the victims.
“You look emotionless. How dare you?” one of them repeated several times.
Some of Dejaeger’s victims said that what he did to them made them lose trust in the church itself. Some blamed higher-ranking priests for not listening to them or stopping their abuser.
One of them said she burned her birth certificate because it was issued by the Roman Catholic Church.
“I hate the smell of church,” she said, adding the church where Dejaeger assaulted her has changed little since then, with some posters still hanging on the walls reminding her of the things the priest did to her nearly a half-century ago.
Some family members of Dejaeger’s victims also offered statements arguing that his crimes have affected generations of Nunavummiut.
Dejaeger is expected to be sentenced in court Friday.
He looks pretty young for a 78 year old