CultNEWS101 Articles: 2/4/2022 (Jehovah's Witnesses, Germany, Legal, Nazis, Brother Julius, Grenville Christian College, Sexual Abuse, Legal, Canada)

Jehovah's Witnesses, Germany, Legal, Nazis, Brother Julius, Grenville Christian College, Sexual Abuse, Legal, Canada

New York Times: Jehovah's Witnesses Sue German Museum for Archive of Nazi-Era Abuses

"The archive documents the lives and suffering of the Kusserow family, who were among many from the religious group to be persecuted by the Nazis because of their faith.

Jehovah's Witnesses, a pacifist religious group, are pursuing legal action against the German government to claim a family archive that documents the Nazis' persecution of the Christian denomination.

The archive comprises 31 files of documents relating to the Kusserow family, whose members were arrested, imprisoned and murdered by the Nazi regime because of their faith.

It has been held by the Museum of Military History in Dresden, which is operated by the German army, since 2009 when it was purchased from a member of the Kusserow family.

A German regional court rejected the Jehovah's Witnesses' claim last year, saying the museum had purchased the archive in good faith and should keep it. But the religious group is appealing that ruling, arguing that the family member who sold it was not the actual owner of the archive, which had been bequeathed to the Jehovah's Witnesses in the 2005 will of Annemarie Kusserow, the family member who had assembled and maintained the documents.

The museum's retention of the archive, said Wolfram Slupina, a spokesman for the Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany, "deprives us of a significant and invaluable part of our cultural heritage."

The archive documents the lives and suffering of the family of Franz and Hilda Kusserow, devout Jehovah's Witnesses, who were raising their 11 children in a large house in Bad Lippspringe in northern Germany when the Nazis came to power. The Jehovah's Witnesses were the first religious denomination to be banned, and the Kusserows' home was searched for religious materials by the Gestapo 18 times."

CT Insider: Man, 77, accused of killing reputed CT cult leader dies after contracting COVID in prison, attorney says

"A 77-year-old man accused of participating in the murder of a reputed leader in the Brother Julius cult died from complications of COVID-19 while he was incarcerated awaiting trial, his attorney said Thursday.

Rudy Hannon, 77, was arrested by New Britain police in July 2018 and charged with murder and murder during the commission of a felony in the death of Paul Sweetman, the second-in-command in the Brother Julius cult who went missing in Southington in 2004, according to court documents.

Julius Schacknow, known as Brother Julius, was accused of enlisting hundreds of residents from the Northeast in the 1970s and 1980s to join the cult, which discouraged education or any free thought, former followers said, according to court documents.

Schacknow died in 1996, leaving Sweetman and others to continue the cult on a smaller scale, former members said, according to court documents.

According to an arrest warrant, Hannon and Sorek Minery, another cult member, killed Sweetman in Plainville in 2004, placed his body in a freezer and then dismembered him, burying his remains at various locations in New Britain.

Hannon, however, maintained his innocence to the end, his attorney J. Patten Brown III said Thursday."

Religion News Service: Russia jails more Jehovah's Witnesses, prompting calls for 'strong measures'

More than 80 Jehovah's Witnesses are imprisoned in Russia, including some awaiting trial and some detained after being convicted.

"Despite a court ruling by Russian judges in October that seemed to endorse leniency for Jehovah's Witnesses arrested after their faith was labeled "extremist," a recent rash of sentences against members of the faith group has prompted concern among human rights advocates that the government is continuing its earlier crackdown against the denomination.

More than 80 Jehovah's Witnesses are now in confinement in Russia, some awaiting trial and some imprisoned after being convicted.

"USCIRF had hoped that a … 2021 decision by the Russian Supreme Court banning the prosecution of Jehovah's Witness group prayer signaled a shift in official policy towards the group, but this is clearly not the case," said U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom commissioner Khizr Khan in a statement to Religion News Service.

"The Russian government's persecution of the Jehovah's Witnesses has gained renewed momentum in the last week," Khan said.

On Thursday (Jan. 20), a court in Seversk sentenced Yevgeniy Korotun, a Jehovah's Witness who had been detained since July 2020, to seven years and Andrey Kolesnichenko to four. Their convictions occurred a day after Aleksey Yershov, a 68-year-old member of the religious group, was sentenced to three years in a penal colony.

Korotun, according to the Jehovah's Witnesses, was charged on the basis of hidden recordings of him conversing about the Bible. The religious group said Kolesnichenko was recorded by someone who acted interested in the Bible and turned the recording over to authorities."

CBC News: New sex abuse allegations target son of former headmaster at now-closed Christian boarding school

Former students of a now-shuttered Christian boarding school are coming forward with allegations of sexual abuse.

"More former students of a now-shuttered Christian boarding school in eastern Ontario are coming forward with allegations of sexual abuse against a son of the former headmaster, fearing he continues to be a danger to children.

The two former Grenville Christian College students told CBC's The Fifth Estate they were abused by Robert Farnsworth as children in the 1980s.

"I'm [speaking out] today because I know that someone who sexually assaults little kids … who doesn't hesitate to take away their innocence at the age of six or seven, or eight … will never stop," one former student said.

"Not until he's … locked up."

The CBC is protecting her identity because of the nature of the allegations.
Watch "School of Secrets: New revelations from inside the cult" on The Fifth Estate on Thursday at 9 p.m. on CBC-TV or stream on CBC Gem.

Robert Farnsworth hasn't responded to repeated requests for comment from CBC News.

The new allegations are in addition to those of two other former students who say they, too, were abused as children by the same man. Those allegations were revealed as part of an investigation by The Fifth Estate into Grenville Christian College in November."

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New sex abuse allegations target son of former headmaster at now-closed Christian boarding school

Ontario Provincial Police reviewing previous investigation into Grenville Christian College

Timothy Sawa, Andrew Culbert, Bob McKeown ·
CBC News
January 20, 2022

More former students of a now-shuttered Christian boarding school in eastern Ontario are coming forward with allegations of sexual abuse against a son of the former headmaster, fearing he continues to be a danger to children.

The two former Grenville Christian College students told CBC's The Fifth Estate they were abused by Robert Farnsworth as children in the 1980s.

"I'm [speaking out] today because I know that someone who sexually assaults little kids … who doesn't hesitate to take away their innocence at the age of six or seven, or eight … will never stop," one former student said.

"Not until he's … locked up."

The CBC is protecting her identity because of the nature of the allegations.
Watch "School of Secrets: New revelations from inside the cult" on The Fifth Estate on Thursday at 9 p.m. on CBC-TV or stream on CBC Gem.

Robert Farnsworth hasn't responded to repeated requests for comment from CBC News.

The new allegations are in addition to those of two other former students who say they, too, were abused as children by the same man. Those allegations were revealed as part of an investigation by The Fifth Estate into Grenville Christian College in November.

Farnsworth, 55, lives near Brockville, 115 kilometres south of Ottawa.

In the 1980s, he was a student and then, after graduation, a maintenance person at the Anglican boarding school near Brockville. His father, Charles Farnsworth, was the headmaster at the school from 1983 to 1997.

In 2020, former students won a lawsuit, later upheld on appeal, confirming they had been emotionally and physically abused over three decades at Grenville Christian College.

The Fifth Estate's report in November revealed additional allegations of sexual abuse involving Farnsworth, and his father Charles.

"There was a sleepover that was going to be held at [headmaster] Charles Farnsworth's house," former Grenville student Michael Phelan told The Fifth Estate last summer. "In the night, [his son] Robert molested me and [another] boy."

One of the two new people to come forward says she was assaulted by Robert Farnsworth when she was six or seven years old in the late 1980s. The other was 14 years old and a Grade 8 student at Grenville Christian College when he says he was assaulted at the school in 1986.

Family believes allegations may be true

Charles Farnsworth died in 2015. Robert's brother, Donald, who was also a senior administrator at the school, has repeatedly defended the school and his brother's reputation. He also denied the earlier allegations of sexual abuse on behalf of his brother in an email to The Fifth Estate.

Donald has not been the subject of any allegations.

However, in response to a series of more recent private Facebook messages with one of his brother's accusers, obtained by The Fifth Estate, Donald appears to admit he believes, in at least one case, the allegations against his brother could be true.

His brother's accuser reached out to him after The Fifth Estate story in November, saying she and another boy had been abused.

"Your brother raped me while another boy was in the same room," she wrote. "He then sexually assaulted that other little boy."

Donald Farnsworth replied: "I have asked my brother on multiple occasions to admit guilt and pay consequences."

As a former student, Donald is familiar with his brother's accuser and her family, adding: "You are someone I would choose to believe over my brother."

Cult connection

The Fifth Estate investigation also uncovered strong connections between Grenville Christian College and a controversial cult in Cape Cod, Mass.

The Community of Jesus was founded in the 1960s. Its website says it has 275 members, many of whom live at its sprawling compound on the shores of Cape Cod.

The group vigorously denies it's connected to the former Ontario school, but witnesses and documents obtained by The Fifth Estate show ties between the two entities that lasted decades, including provincial records listing leaders in the U.S. as corporate directors for the school. A judge in Canada also confirmed the connection.

Senior leaders from the U.S. group often visited the Ontario school and children from Cape Cod were sent to attend school there. Teachers and staff members often travelled back and forth between the two for retreats and employment.

One of Robert Farnsworth's accusers who recently came forward says he abused her at the Community of Jesus in Cape Cod, where he visited. She lived there when she wasn't going to school at Grenville Christian College.

In a written response, a lawyer for the Community of Jesus says Robert Farnsworth was never an official member of the U.S. group.

"We understand that allegations have come to light about the alleged conduct of a Canadian citizen, Robert Farnsworth … including allegations that such conduct occurred not only in Canada but at a privately owned house on Cape Cod," Jeffrey Robbins wrote in an email to The Fifth Estate.

"The conduct alleged would have been disgraceful, outrageous and in utter contradiction of what we stand for and believe in."

OPP reviewing case

A fourth man accused Robert Farnsworth of assaulting him when he was a student at Grenville in 1986 and 1987. Farnsworth had recently graduated from Grenville Christian College and was working as a maintenance person there at the time.

In 2016, Farnsworth was charged with sexual assault and gross indecency in that case, but was acquitted at trial.

Following The Fifth Estate report in November that revealed the new allegations of sexual assault against Robert Farnsworth, the Ontario Provincial Police announced it was reviewing its entire investigation into Grenville Christian College, including allegations against Farnsworth.

That review is underway.

"The OPP criminal investigation branch is continuing to actively review the allegations which the CBC brought to our attention in late 2021," the OPP wrote in a statement.

"This could include interviews or re-interviews of witnesses, as determined by the assigned OPP major case manager. All of this will take time."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-allegations-school-of-secrets-1.6319539

Christian College ruling 'validating': Student

Wayne Lowrie
Brockville Recorder and Times
March 5, 2020

A former Grenville Christian College student, who successfully sued the school, says she couldn’t be more pleased by the judge’s decision.

“It was very validating,” Lisa Cavanaugh said of Justice Janet Leiper’s ruling that found all of the former students to be “credible and reliable” witnesses.

“Our lawyers did a fantastic job in telling our story,” Cavanaugh said.

Cavanaugh was one of five former students who waged a 12-year legal battle against the now defunct Christian school and the estates of its two former headmasters.

Leiper’s decision last month that upheld the former students’ class-action suit complaining of physical abuse, demeaning discipline and humiliation was overwhelming, Cavanaugh said.

The legal journey, which started in late 2007, was long and gruelling but ultimately worth it, she said.

“It was important to get the truth out there because there were students who were deeply affected by their time at GCC,” Cavanaugh said. “It was important for people to understand that Grenville was not necessarily as they portrayed themselves.”

In her judgment, Leiper said the school created an “abusive, authoritarian and rigid culture” that exploited and controlled the young students.

“I have concluded that the evidence of maltreatment and the varieties of abuse perpetrated on students’ bodies and minds in the name of COJ (Community of Jesus) values of submission and obedience was class-wide and decades-wide,” Leiper said.

During 22 days of hearings this fall and early winter, Leiper, of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, heard the former students’ harrowing testimony of corporal punishment with a wooden paddle, school-wide public humiliation sessions to shame students for such infractions as “being too haughty” or “smiling too much” and degrading work assignments.

As disciplinary measures, students were forced to clean floors with toothbrushes, pick up leaves on their hands and knees under the supervision of a younger student, clean out a dumpster of garbage and a dead animal carcass and cut the grass using small scissors, the court was told.

Cavanaugh was living with her mother in Maitland when she attended GCC from 1984-89, first as a day student in Grades 6, 7 and 8, then as a boarding student for Grades 9 and 10.

Now married and an IT professional in Ottawa, Cavanaugh didn’t want to discuss her time at the Christian college because GCC lawyers have indicated that they might appeal Leiper’s decision. But she said her time there was obviously traumatic or she wouldn’t have spent the last 12 years pursuing justice.

In court, Cavanaugh testified about the all-school assemblies at which students were criticized in front of their peers. She told of staff dorm raids in which girls’ underwear drawers were searched for underwear that wasn’t “regulation”; of a bedtime lecture by Charles Farnsworth in which the headmaster scolded the girls for being “bitches in heat” and suggested that they would be responsible for attacks by boys if they didn’t dress appropriately.

In her judgment, Leiper included Cavanaugh’s testimony of the school’s atmosphere.

“You could walk through the hallways at any given time and be corrected for not smiling enough, bringing down the spirit of the school. You could be chastised for the way you walked, if your kilt swayed too much that would not be a good idea. Something even as simple as crossing your legs, if you were sitting in a chair. On the edge of your chair and you crossed your legs, you could be chastised for that because the boys would be able to see the slip from the bottom of the chair.”

Leiper ruled that the college and the estates of two deceased former headmasters will have to pay yet-to-be-determined punitive damages. She ordered the two parties to go before a case management judge to discuss a settlement. If they are unable to agree she will consider written submissions on costs after Mar. 21.

Cavanaugh said money is obviously a factor in the class-action suit, but it never was the students’ true goal.

“Our goal was to have people acknowledged and to be allowed to heal,” she said. “And to have people admit to their role. But, unfortunately, they refused.”

Grenville Christian College, just east of Brockville, opened in 1969 as Berean Christian School to offer elementary and secondary education to boys and girls.

The complaints of the former students start in 1973 when the school adopted new programing from an American Christian community called the Community of Jesus, or COJ.

The school closed in 2007.

wlowrie@postmedia.com



https://www.recorder.ca/news/local-news/christian-college-ruling-was-validating-for-students

CultNEWS101 Articles: 9/23/2019

Grenville Christian College, Exorcism, Canada, Legal, Tajikistan, Jehovah's Witnesses, Religious Discrimination, NXIVM

 

Toronto Sun: Systemic abuse at defunct private Christian school: Lawsuit

"A group of former students are set to take the private Christian school they attended to court next week, alleging in a class-action lawsuit that they were subjected to psychological abuse designed to erode their sense of safety.

The certified class action, which has spent more than a decade winding its way through the legal system, will see five plaintiffs represent former residential students who attended Grenville Christian College in Brockville between 1973 and 1997.

"The conduct of the defendants … was calculated to produce harm and did, in fact, produce physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual harms," the students' statement of claim reads. 'The defendants fostered an atmosphere of fear, intimidation, anxiety and suspicion.'"

Global News: Class action lawsuit alleges 'exorcisms,' 'light-sessions' as abuses at private Ontario school

" .... 'The conduct of the defendants … was calculated to produce harm and did, in fact, produce physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual harms,' the students' statement of claim reads. 'The defendants fostered an atmosphere of fear, intimidation, anxiety and suspicion.'

The plaintiffs are suing the school and the estates of two of its former headmasters — Charles Farnsworth, who died in 2015, and J. Alastair Haig, who died in 2009 — along with some family members who also worked at the school for $200 million in damages for allegedly breaching their duty to take care of the students.

The students allege they were cut off from communicating with their families, kept under constant surveillance and subjected to 'exorcisms' and so-called 'light sessions.'"

The Sun Daily: Tajikistan jails Jehovah's Witness

"A court in Tajikistan has sentenced a Jehovah's Witness to seven-and-a-half years in prison on extremism charges, triggering a condemnation from the religious group on Wednesday.

Police in Tajikistan detained Shamil Hakimov on suspicion of extremism in February this year, according to the independent Tajik news agency Asia Plus.

The prosecution accused him of propagating the group's ideas in the small northern Tajik town of Buston where he moved in 2016 after previously living in the capital Dushanbe, the news agency said.

The Tuesday ruling of a court in the northern city of Khujand also prohibits Hakimov from working in religious organisations for three years after his release, the report said.

Authorities in majority-Muslim Tajikistan banned the Jehovah's Witnesses in 2008."

WSJ: I Left the Cult Next Door

"For the past five years, I have received a daily email filled with stories about those who succumb to extreme religious ideologies. Whether it's the Nxivm sex-cult trial in New York earlier this year or the Netflix documentary series "Wild Wild Country," Americans have shown an expansive appetite for cult stories. While my interest in the topic isn't unique, it's personal: I grew up in a cult."

Radar Online: BRANDING BODIES & FILMED NUDITY: EX-NXIVM MEMBER EXPOSES ALLISON MACK'S CORRUPT BEHAVIOR IN NEW TELL-ALL

"Allison Mack is currently awaiting prison sentencing for her racketeering crimes in the NXIVM sex cult, months after she pleaded guilty. Now, former member Sarah Edmondson is ripping the lid off of the former Smallville star's corrupt actions in the disgraced organization for the first time – and RadarOnline.com has exclusive details of the revelations.

In Scarred: The Truth Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult that Bound My Life, out on Sept. 17, Edmondson bravely comes forward about the horrific abuse she both witnessed and endured at the hands of the organization's highest executives, during the 12 years she was a member.

Edmondson, a Canada native, wife and mother of two, tells the story about how she abruptly left NXIVM in 2017 after learning that the "women's empowerment group" known as DOS that she joined was actually an inner sex ring, where women were branded with cult leader Keith Raniere's initials."

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Former Christian school headmaster’s son charged with sexual assault

ERIC ANDREW-GEE
Globe and Mail
October 8, 2016

The son of a former headmaster of an Ontario Christian school that was closed in 2007 amid accusations of abuse and cult-like practices has been charged with sexual assault for alleged offences dating back 30 years.

Robert Farnsworth, 49, was charged on Wednesday with sexual assault and gross indecency in connection with incidents between 1986 and 1987. The alleged victim was male and under 18 years old. Mr. Farnsworth appeared in a Brockville, Ont., court on Thursday and was granted bail.

He is the son of Charles Farnsworth, the late headmaster of Grenville Christian College, an elite private school near Brockville that was affiliated with the Community of Jesus, a controversial U.S. religious sect often described as a cult. Grenville closed in 2007 after 38 years in operation, citing declining enrolment and rising operating costs.

The closing coincided with a growing chorus of alumni accusing the school of chronic abuse and bizarre religious rites. A $225-million class action lawsuit filed in 2008 alleges former students were “sexually, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually traumatized” by their time at the school. The suit is ongoing.

Heather Bakken, a Grenville alumnus and Toronto resident, expressed relief and a sense of “vindication” that someone connected to the school is facing charges, although investigators would not confirm that the allegations concern Grenville.

Former students have described a climate of intense sexual repression in which women suspected of immoral behaviour were described as “Jezebels” and “bitches in heat,” and romantic relationships between students were discouraged and brutally policed.

Extreme physical punishment was common for students who ran afoul of the school’s stringent rules, a 2007 Globe investigation found. One ex-pupil described being beaten by a teacher using a heavy wooden object until he bled into his underpants.

Charles Farnsworth, a member of the Community of Jesus and an ordained Anglican priest, presided over a culture of religious fervour that many former students describe as frightening and abusive. School staff held what were known as “light sessions,” in which teenagers were taken from their beds at night and placed in a dark room and interrogated about their “sins” with a light shining on them.

The allegations led to an inquiry by the Anglican Church into the two priests who were headmasters of the school, and an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) investigation that ended in 2008 with no charges.

In a release, the OPP said the current investigation began after a man came forward in early 2016 with allegations of sexual assault.

Many former students commented this week on a Facebook group for Grenville alumni, including contemporaries of Robert Farnsworth who believe he was a staff member at the school at the time of the alleged offences, although others recalled him being in Grade 13.

The Community of Jesus was founded by two women known as Mother Cay Andersen and Mother Judy Sorensen, who believed children should be separated from their parents for long stretches to avoid being “idolatrized.” It operated an authoritarian religious compound in Massachusetts that frequently sent its children to Grenville.

The school, which charged up to $35,000 a year in tuition, counted two former Ontario lieutenant-governors, a senator and a former Canadian high commissioner to the U.K. among its patrons.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/former-christian-school-headmasters-son-charged-with-sexual-assault/article32306441/

Son of late Grenville headmaster arrested for sex assault

Robert Farnsworth, 49, is charged with sexual assault and gross indecency in case from 1980s. The school where his dad was headmaster is subject to a $225-million abuse lawsuit.

Toronto Star

By ALEX BALLINGALL

Fri., Oct. 7, 2016

The son of the late headmaster of a now-defunct private Christian school in eastern Ontario, which is subject to a $225-million abuse lawsuit, has been charged with sexual assault and indecent exposure.

Ontario Provincial Police allege the offences occurred against a single victim in 1986 and 1987. To protect the anonymity of the alleged victim, OPP Sgt. Angie Atkinson would not confirm or deny any connection to the school, which was called Grenville Christian College. She would only say that police believe the crimes took place in Grenville County, northeast of Kingston.

Robert Farnsworth, 49, was arrested on Wednesday and appeared in a Brockville courtroom the following day. Donald Farnsworth, one of the long-time headmaster’s other sons and a former teacher at the school, confirmed to the Star on Thursday that the man arrested is his brother.

“I can’t really talk any more about it. We’ll let the legal system take care of it,” he said.

From 1973 to its closure in 2007, Grenville Christian College billed itself as a prestigious boarding school for girls and boys, with a scenic campus near the shoreline of the St. Lawrence River, just east of Brockville. The class action lawsuit, which was certified in 2014, features more than 180 plaintiffs who attended the school between 1973 and 1997. Their statement of claim alleges that, as Grenville students, they were subject to arbitrary discipline, bizarre religious practices and systemic abuse that left them “sexually, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually traumatized.”

In a statement of defence from 2010, the school claimed “there is no truth whatsoever” to the allegations.

Charles Farnsworth, who died in March 2015, was the Grenville headmaster from 1983 to 1997, according to his son Donald’s affidavit from 2010.

The Farnsworths’ lawyer, Geoffrey Adair, who is also defending the college in the lawsuit, told the Star on Thursday that Robert Farnsworth would have “probably” been assigned some work at the school during the mid-1980s. He said he was aware that police were investigating the 49-year-old based on historic allegations, but was “surprised” to learn that he had been arrested.

He added that the statement of claim in the lawsuit does not mention Robert Farnsworth as an alleged perpetrator of abuse.

In an email Thursday, Loretta Merritt, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said she believes Charles’s son Robert Farnsworth was a junior staff member at the school when the alleged assault occurred.

Angus Janes told the Star on Thursday that he remembers Robert from his time at Grenville, where they were students in the early 1980s. He was a few years older than Robert, and said he recalls that he didn’t like the rules of the school. “He didn’t even like his father, from what he told me,” said Janes, who is now 52. “He seemed like a normal guy—normal meaning he wasn’t your typical staff kid pushing the school’s agenda.”

Andrew Hale-Byrne, another student who graduated in the mid-1990s, said he was subjected to “psychological warfare” at the school, where teachers routinely called students names like “pig,” “filth,” “trash” and “slut.”

He said he remembers Robert Farnsworth as a member of the school staff.

Earlier this year, the Star reported on the allegations of seven former Grenville students—including Hale-Byrne—who claimed in affidavits and interviews that they experienced fear, humiliation and violence during their time at the school.

Central to the claims of former students are allegations that Grenville faculty, including Charles Farnsworth, had close ties with a small religious sect from Massachusetts called the Community of Jesus.

According to the plaintiffs’ statement of claim, while the school presented itself as Anglican, the college’s staff engaged in a “systematic campaign . . . to promote and indoctrinate students in the teachings” of the Community of Jesus.

Fathers Charles Farnsworth and J. Alastair Haig, who co-founded Grenville, were members of the Community of Jesus, but in 1977 they were also ordained Anglican priests. Haig served as headmaster until 1983, at which point Farnsworth took over until 1997.

With files from Ben Spurr

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/10/07/son-of-late-grenville-headmaster-arrested-for-sex-assault.html

 

 

Former Grenville Christian College students tell harrowing stories of abuse

Ben Spurr
Toronto Star
February 29, 2016

Grenville Christian College shut down in 2007.

It’s been nearly a decade since the Grenville Christian College closed, but some of the institution’s former students say they’re still haunted by what happened behind its doors.

From 1973 until it shut down in 2007, the elite private boarding school northeast of Brockville, Ont. promised pupils a world-class religious and academic education at an idyllic campus on the shores of the St. Lawrence River.

But a $225-million class action lawsuit alleges that pupils who lived and studied there got something much more damaging — a strict regime of arbitrary discipline, bizarre religious practices, and systemic abuse that left them “sexually, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually traumatized.”

Grenville denied the accusations in the suit, which was launched in 2008 and certified in 2014. According to a statement of defence the college filed in 2010 “there is no truth whatsoever” to the allegations. “The representative plaintiffs were never, advertently or inadvertently, subjected to any conduct in the nature of physical or mental abuse,” the statement said.

In fact, the school’s defence stated, “Grenville enjoyed a good reputation over the years in Ontario and elsewhere for its academic prowess, extracurricular activities and caring approach toward the betterment of young people in its charge.”

In affidavits to support the class action, five former students described life at the school as being dominated by fear, humiliation and occasionally violence. Two more Grenville alumni interviewed by the Star described similarly traumatizing experiences.

The class action covers people who attended the school between 1973 and 1997, and according to a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, so far 182 former pupils have come forward expressing interest in making a claim.

Dan Michielsen enrolled at the college in 1985 when he was 15 years old. In an interview with the Star, he said that by the time he left four years later, he was “a wreck.”

He alleged that two weeks after arriving at Grenville a staff member woke him up by punching him in the groin, an apparent punishment for talking in his sleep. Michielsen said he was then dragged into the washroom and forced to clean it with a toothbrush. The staff member urinated on him as he scrubbed the floor, he said.

Michielsen said he was often berated by staff, who called him “disgusting,” “evil,” a “pig,” and a “mutt.”

Now 46, he says he has been left with debilitating self-esteem problems as a result of the alleged abuse. “After a while, I just accepted that I was a loser, that I was a s---, that I should just shut my mouth,” he said. “The doubt is always there.”

Another former student, Andrew Hale-Byrne, alleged in his affidavit that while at Grenville between 1988 and 1990, he was physically assaulted, punished with sleep deprivation and forced labour, and even subjected to an exorcism to “cure” his dyslexia.

In an interview, he said he left the college believing that he deserved to be abused and that he was “damned” to hell. “(Grenville) destroyed you to the point where you thought you couldn’t achieve in life, and you didn’t deserve to achieve,” he said. He likened life at the college to “waking up in a horror movie.”

Central to the lawsuit are allegations of close ties between Grenville faculty and a small religious sect founded in Massachusetts in the 1970s called the Community of Jesus. A 1981 Boston magazine story reported that former members of the Community described it as a cult that practiced physical and psychological abuse. The group’s leadership at the time denied the report.

According to the plaintiffs’ statement of claim, while the school presented itself as Anglican, the college’s staff engaged in a “systematic campaign . . . to promote and indoctrinate students in the teachings” of the Community of Jesus.

Fathers Charles Farnsworth and J. Alastair Haig, who co-founded Grenville,were members of the Community of Jesus, but in 1977 they were also ordained Anglican priests. Haig served as headmaster until 1983, at which point Farnsworth took over until 1997.

In affidavits for the suit, two former teachers said many staff were either members of the Community of Jesus or shared its values, but the college’s statement of defence denied the school promoted the sect’s beliefs to students.

In an interview with CTV’s investigative news program W5 that aired Feb. 6, Joan Childs, who was a teacher and administrator at Grenville for 32 years beginning in 1972, said one of the techniques Grenville staff imported from the Community of Jesus were so-called “light sessions.”

The former students who filed affidavits and spoke to the Star described these sessions as a form of ritual humiliation in which they were compelled to confess sins, real or imagined, while staff screamed abuse at them. The sessions could occur day or night, in front of a group or alone.

Childs told W5 the sessions “could get out of hand. It could get verbally abusive, it could get physically abusive at times,” she said.

“They were intensely frightening,” according to the affidavit sworn by Lisa Cavanaugh, who boarded at the school for two years, beginning in 1987. “The only way to make it stop was to cry and to tell them that I accepted that I had sinned.”

Cavanaugh, who was 14 when she entered the school, said that girls were often singled out during light sessions and “accused of being whores.”

The statement of claim alleges that other abuses included putting students “on discipline,” periods of excessive or abusive punishment during which children could be forbidden to speak or forced to perform tasks like scrubbing the kitchen with a toothbrush or cleaning out grease traps with their hands.

Richard Van Dusen, who was a boarding student for two years beginning in 1979 when he was 18, swore in his affidavit that when two teachers found out he bought a younger pupil a case of beer, they bent him over a chair and beat him with a wooden paddle. Afterward his underwear was “soaked through with blood.”

The Ontario Provincial Police investigated allegations of abuse at Grenville in 2007, but a spokesperson for the force told the Star that after consultation with the crown attorney, a decision was made not to press charges. The spokesperson couldn’t say why that decision was reached.

The two men in charge of the school during the alleged abuses are no longer living — Haig died in 2009, and Farnsworth passed away in March 2015.

Not everyone has bad memories of Grenville. Nine former students presented evidence in support of the school’s defence, denying there was abuse. David Webb, who attended the college from 1984 to 1987, said in an affidavit that staff exhibited “the kindest and most caring spirit imaginable” and pushed the students to achieve more they thought themselves capable of.

Donald Farnsworth, Father Charles Farnsworth’s son, conceded in an affidavit he filed as part of the suit that Grenville was strict, but asserted “that was one of its strengths.”

Donald attended grades nine to 13 at the college, and after graduating in 1976 went on to serve for two decades as a teacher and administrator at Grenville. In an interview, he said the school gave him “a fantastic education.”

Even though Grenville staff sometimes “disciplined me in a way that I found painful at the time,” he said, “I am very grateful for the growth that I experienced.”

With files from CTV’s W5.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/02/29/former-grenville-christian-college-students-tell-harrowing-stories-of-abuse.html

Former students allege psychological, physical and sexual abuse at Ont. Christian school

Victor Malarek
CTV News
February 6, 2016 

Watch Video.

For hundreds of former students, the school, which now sits empty having closed its doors in 2007, is a place haunted with painful memories.

W5 spoke with several alumni who recounted disturbing stories about their years at the school and the abuses they suffered – allegations of physical, sexual and psychological abuse during the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

Mark Vincent attended Grenville in the '70s. “Probably the worst memory, they beat the crap out of me with a desk top to the point where I couldn’t stand, because God told them to do it to me.”

Standing at the edge of the property, Jacqueline Thomas could barely look up at the sprawling campus. She was a student in the '90s. “This is the first time I’ve been here in 22 years. I’m trying really hard not to cry. But I feel sick. I’m terrified.”

With a Grenville brochure in hand, Andrew Hale-Byrne recalled his family’s search for a school and thinking they’d found a place like the finest boarding schools in his native United Kingdom.

“My mother commented that it looked better than most country clubs she’d seen. It was beautiful. It was actually breathtaking,” Andrew said.

But soon after arriving at the school, he witnessed first-hand the dark side.

“One thing that stuck out in my mind and I found this particularly disturbing from the very first moment I witnessed it was the public humiliations in the chapel and the dining room where they (the headmaster and teachers) would drag a student onto the stage and that person would be ripped apart, humiliated, shamed in front of the entire student body.”

What Andrew found troubling was that the brochure promised “love and Christian teaching,” but, he says, they got neither.

“They took Christianity which is a religion of love which was my experience of growing up Anglican and they inverted it into a cult of hate.”

“I was told that in order to be loved by God I had to pass through the light and that involved going through what they called a ‘light session’ which is one of these public humiliations. And you had to die to self they said in order to be loved by God, and that involved hating yourself,” Andrew explained.

“After two years of being there I came to believe that I was garbage, filth, trash. We were told ‘God hates you. God doesn’t love you. You’re damned.’ And I came to just normalize this.”

Andrew has written a book about his experiences, which is available online.

Dan Michielsen entered Grenville in 1985 in grade 10. He described himself as a happy go lucky 15-year-old but all that changed within a couple of weeks with a rude awakening.

Dan recalled being dragged out of bed along with other boys in the dormitory in the middle of the night by staff. “Lights would be turned on and we were berated and screamed at for being sinful boys.”

Sinful boys, but the girls were singled out by headmaster Charles Farnsworth and other staff for far more degrading attacks simply because they were female.

Sheila Coons recalled the headmaster seeing her as the Devil incarnate.

“He would say that I had a devil inspired body and that I was tempting men by my devil inspired body. He compared me to Lucifer because at the time I was blonde and Lucifer apparently had blonde hair.”

According to Sheila and confirmed by other former students W5 interviewed, Farnsworth often accused girls of inviting sexual attention.

“Father Farnworth took me into the Vestry and told me that I was a whore and I looked like a whore and I had really no alternative in life but to be a whore,” Sheila said.

“We were told that women are responsible for anything sexual, for turning men on, turning boys on, that men just looked at us as pieces of meat. And if a woman got raped that was her fault. She was a temptress as Eve was a temptress, as Jezebel was a temptress and then the list goes on.”

Farnworth’s tirades about women may have hidden his own lust.

“He would call me up to his office frequently, take me out of class and tell me what an awful, sinful creature I was.

“On this one occasion he stood up, pressed his body against mine. He said, ‘you smell good’ and he clenched me to him and he put his mouth on my neck and licked it and he pressed his hips up against mine.

“At the time I thought he was obsessed with me. I found out later that he was doing it to other girls as well.”

Today, these students are grown up but they still feel the pain, and are now part of a $200-million lawsuit – a class action – on behalf of hundreds of former boarding school students, claiming systemic abuse and bizarre religious practices at the hands of Grenville staff, especially Father Charles Farnsworth.

Farnsworth’s version of what went on at Grenville may never be fully known. He died in March 2015. But former students had already launched their class action against the school by this time.

Farnsworth came to the school in 1972 and by 1983 he was named headmaster, a position he held for the next 14 years. What students likely didn’t know back then was that he and other staff members were disciples of an American group called the Community of Jesus based in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Reports by U.S. news media beginning in the 1980s described the group as a cult which practiced communal living and extreme rituals, particularly when it came to disciplining each other.

As a devout follower, Farnsworth applied the teachings of the Community of Jesus at Grenville on unsuspecting students.

Before his death, Farnsworth wrote about the allegations in a document obtained by W5. “The whole reason for being in our mission was to bring these people into the realm of the Christ ….”

Farnsworth added: ‘We have been accused of many things that I never knew of and never heard of … But I honestly think some of the people have gone delusional. Some of the things they said happened, some of the accusations of sexual abuse by me, they just didn’t happen.”

Many former Grenville staff also vigorously deny the allegations put forward in the lawsuit.

However, Joan Childs, a former teacher and administrator at the school, as well as a follower of the Community of Jesus and one of Farnsworth’s inner circle, told W5 that the students are telling the truth.

“They aren’t exaggerating. They aren’t making these things up. As sad as it is, these things happened.”

She has apologized for what was done to students at the school while she was there.

Victor Malarek is an investigative reporter with W5. His documentary In the Name of God can be seen on CTV’s W5 Saturday at 7 pm.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/w5/former-students-allege-psychological-physical-and-sexual-abuse-at-ont-christian-school-1.2766446

CTV’s W5 investigates claims by students at former Grenville Christian College

CKWS TV
February 05, 2016

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Grenville Christian College near Brockville has been closed for a decade. But allegations about the treatment of former students continue to swirl around the former boarding school. Now, some students who attended the private school are speaking out about allegations of their treatment in a CTV, W-5 Documentary. Newswatch's Heather Senoran has a preview.

The allegations are disturbing. Hundreds of former students who used to attend grenville christian college — located here on the outskirts of brockville — have filed a 200-million dollar lawsuit. They want an apology and validation for what they went through. …. claiming the christian school was run like a cult. Here's a sample of what they're saying.
"They took Christianity, which is a religion of love, which was my experience of growing up Anglican… and they inverted it into a cult of hate."

"What was I called? I was called a mutt. I was called an animal. I was called a pig."

"We were told that women were responsible for anything sexual, for turning men on, whatever, turning the boys on. That men just looked at us as pieces of meat. And if a woman got raped that was her fault because she was a temptress as eve was a temptress."

"There are women teachers there. Are they not standing forward and saying don't talk to the girls like this."
"Well it was a very strange thing. No. No women teachers did that."
grenville christian college closed its doors in 2007. what happened in the school for decades is the focus of a "ctv w-5″ documentary … that airs this Saturday on CKWS at 7pm. w-5′s victor malorek met with some former students.
here's a preview of the documentary called — "in the name of god."


http://www.ckwstv.com/2016/02/05/ctvs-w5-investigates-claims-by-students-at-former-grenville-christian-college/