Charges for Failure to Snitch

January 10, 2008 permalink

A fourteen-year-old girl was gang-raped by six boys in the C W Jefferys Collegiate Institute. Three officials have been charged with failing to make a report to child protectors. The incident in question was a breach of the peace, not a child protection matter, but that will not prevent children's aid from exploiting the situation to spread fear among school administrators and enhance its power with more snitches.

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SCHOOL SAFETY

C.W. Jefferys staff charged with failing to report alleged assault

The Globe and Mail, TIMOTHY APPLEBY, January 8, 2008

Days before the release of a report on safety in Toronto schools, three senior staff members at the high school that spawned the inquiry face troubles of their own.

The former principal and two vice-principals at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute have been charged under Ontario's Child and Family Services Act with failing to report an alleged sexual assault on a student, Toronto District School Board education director Gerry Connelly confirmed yesterday.

Disposition of those non-criminal charges, however, will likely wait until the courts deal with the six young people charged in the alleged sex attack, in which a 14-year-old Muslim girl told of being assaulted in a school washroom.

Principal Charis Newton-Thompson and vice-principals Silvio Tallevi and Stan Gordon face fines of up to $1,000 if convicted. Ms. Newton-Thompson and Mr. Gordon are on paid leave; Mr. Tallevi has retired.

The sex charges stemmed from the investigation into the death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners, shot last May inside C.W. Jefferys, a 900-student high school near Keele Street and Finch Avenue West.

Two males aged 17 at the time of the killing face charges of first-degree murder.

Jordan's death prompted creation of a panel examining school safety issues, led by criminal lawyer Julian Falconer, whose findings are expected to be aired early next week.

Among other things, the panel learned of the alleged attack on the girl, in which she is believed to have been lured inside a school washroom in October, 2006, and forced to perform oral sex on one or more boys while the others kept watch.

The six youths have been charged with gang sexual assault, forcible confinement and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.

The CFSA charges, in turn, reflect allegations aired at the panel hearings that school staff became aware of the washroom incident but failed to report it to police or the Children's Aid Society, as the law requires with allegations of physical or sexual assault.

"Following policy, we sent the three administrators home and notified the police," Ms. Connelly said yesterday. "Now they've charged the three administrators."

Source: Globe and Mail