Victims of sexual abuse by clergy opened up to Michel Bastarache

A former Supreme Court justice testified today in a lawsuit between the Diocese of Bathurst and its insurance company.

Michel Bastarache took the stand and described how victims told him how they weresexually abused by Catholic priestsin the diocesedating back to the 1950's.

"Eighty per cent of people told me I was the first person they told," said Bastarachein a Moncton courtroom."About half of those people told me I'd be the last."

Bastarache was in charge of a confidential conciliation or compensation process for victims of molestationby priests intheBathurstdiocese.

Eighty per cent of people told me I was the first person they told, and about half of those people told me I'd be the last.- Michel Bastarache

He was hired in 2010 by Bathurst'sbishop at the time, Valery Vienneau,who is now the Archbishop of Moncton.

"At that time I thought it would be 30 people and only two priests involved, but I interviewed 90 people," said Bastarache.

The victimsreported sexualabuseby a total of 26 priests in the diocese.

The former judge testified in the civil lawsuit between the Bathurstdiocese and the Aviva Insurance company. The church is suing Aviva for more than $7 million, the amount of money it paid out to victims of sexual abuse.

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Aviva argues it has no obligation to pay that money to the church because the company says the church knewchildren and teens were being molested by priests for decades and did nothing about it.

Three victims told Bastaracheat some pointthey'd reported abuses to abishop, and two or three others told him they'dreported abuses during confession.

Emotional reports by victims

Bastarache told the court victims were emotional when telling himtheir stories of abuse.

"Suddenly they'd break out crying, I'd have to stop and come back and ask the same question threeor fourtimes," said Bastarache.

"Some were mad ... some were desperate," he said with emotion to the court, "Some angry."

To ensure anonymity, Bastarache said he is the only one who knows the names of the victimswho received compensation, and the victims are only identified to the diocese by a number.

Compensation formula developed

Bastarache explained to the court he came up with a compensation formula based on a lot of research.

"I read all the casesI could find dealing with sexual assault and tried to identify the kind of abuse and the compensation,' he said.

He interviewed each victim that came forward, and he would cross-referencetheir claims of abuse. Bastarache then determined how much each person would receive based on the nature of assault, age, and number of incidents.

Bastarache told the court he is "convinced" the compensation process was fair to the victims and to the diocese.

"I thought he [Vienneau] was very courageous," he said, referring to the compensation process. Bastarache said Vienneau went ahead with the processdespite pushback from parishioners who didn't want money they helped raise go towards paying out victims of abuse.