Former residential school official in B.C. court

Editor's Note:Gordon Irvin Kinney was acquitted of all charges on March 18, 2009, in Chilliwack Supreme Court.

A man accused of sexually assaulting threeboys at a native residential school in B.C.'s Fraser Valleymade his first court appearance on Monday following his recent extradition from Thailand.

The allegations against Gordon Irvin Kinney date back to the 1960s, when he was the dormitory supervisor at St. Mary's School in Mission.

Kinney, 65,was charged in 2002 with three counts of indecent assault and two of gross indecency stemming from alleged incidents at the school between 1964 and 1969.

However, Kinney could not be found at the time the charges were laid.

TheRCMP followed his trail to Thailand, where hehad been living. He was arrested there last summer and extraditedto B.C. last week.

'Affirming' forformer students

Some of his alleged victims had feared Kinney would never be sent back to Canada, said Sharon Thira, executive director of the Residential Schools Survivors Society.

She said her crisis line was flooded with calls after Kinney's arrest last summer.

"People get triggered again. They recall their own experiences in residential school. They need to talk to somebody about that."

Thira said Kinney's return to B.C. means a lot to his accusers because it shows their allegations weren't being ignored. More importantly, she said, they now have a chance to see Kinney in court.

"It's a really affirming thing for the survivors who have charged him. It's really fantastic that the RCMP have brought him back so that he can now face trial."

Former St. Mary's student Neil Phillips, 56, was inAbbotsford provincial court Monday. He said Kinney's arrestmay help some First Nations people deal with their personal demons.

"Now that they got him, I'm hoping some of my friends will climb out of the bottle or put the needle down and come here and start to heal."