“Many lives have been irrevocably altered by your dark legacy”
By Jim Bell, Nunatsiaq News
Convicted of using numerous Inuit children as his private sex toys between 1978 and 1982, ex-priest Eric Dejaeger, 67, must spend 11 more years in prison, Justice Robert Kilpatrick said in a 60-page written judgment issued Feb. 4.
“Your selfishness has devastated a generation of young Roman Catholic parishioners in Igloolik. Many lives have been irrevocably altered by your dark legacy,” Kilpatrick said in a direct address to Dejaeger.
The judge imposed a sentence of 19 years, minus eight years, calculated on a two-for-one basis from the four-year period during which Dejaeger was detained in custody following his arrest in January 2011.
Kilpatrick, following a lengthy trial that held 2013 and 2014, convicted Dejaeger this past September on 24 of 68 charges he stood trial on.
Dejaeger had also pleaded guilty, in November 2013, to eight other charges.
Prior to his judgment, Kilpatrick heard numerous harrowing stories from people who were children when Dejaeger molested them.
And he heard competing submissions from lawyers.
Crown prosecutor Doug Curliss asked Kilpatrick for a 25-year jail sentence, minus about eight years to account for the four years of hard time Dejaeger has spent in custody, on a two for one basis.
Defence lawyer Malcolm Kempt asked for a sentence of 12 years, minus time served.
But Kilpatrick said 12 years is “not proportional to the number and gravity of Mr. DeJaeger`s offences or the high moral culpability flowing from the circumstances in which they were committed.”
He also addressed part of his judgment to Dejaeger’s numerous victims
“This court is powerless to undo the past. No sentence can ever compensate you for what has been taken. No sentence can ever compensate you for the pain and anguish that you have suffered,” Kilpatrick said.
Source Nunatsiaq Online