Father, 93, convicted of sexually assaulting daughters 50 years ago
The Canadian Press
September 10, 2008 at 4:10 AM EDT
MONTREAL — A 93-year-old Quebec man has
been found guilty of sexually assaulting and beating his two daughters
nearly 50 years ago.
Philippe Hamelin, who is deaf and almost blind, was
convicted in Montreal yesterday of the five charges against him, including
incest, sexual molestation and assault causing bodily harm.
Despite the conviction, Mr. Hamelin proclaimed his innocence and said he
never harmed his daughters.
The acts took place in Montreal and Granby when Marcelle and Michele
Hamelin, now 62 and 63 respectively, were children or just entering their
early teens.
They had the publication ban on their identities lifted yesterday at
their own request.
Marcelle Hamelin said she filed a complaint against her father in 2004 as
she battled alcoholism and depression and after he said he felt no remorse
for his actions.
She said she hopes other victims of sexual abuse will come forward, no
matter what links may exist between them and their attacker.
"All I can hope to tell women who are victims of abuse is to denounce ...
and liberate yourself, no matter who it is, even if it is your father," she
told reporters gathered outside the courtroom.
"Your father is supposed to be the most important person in your life and
mine was a monster."
Mr. Hamelin protested his innocence to reporters as he emerged from the
courthouse, using a walker.
"I didn't sleep with my daughters, I didn't beat anyone, I didn't do
anything," he said as he left the courthouse. Mr. Hamelin remained out on
bail as he prepared to learn his sentence.
He lives in an extended-care home. No date has been set for sentencing,
but the defence will likely argue the prison system is not equipped to deal
with a sick 93-year-old man.
With a report from Les Perreaux
When daughters come forward 60 years later, it raises a great deal of
questions and generally speaking, its far too late to be considering criminal
charges. "children can , I mean can have improper as well as proper motivations.
Improper motivations can mean a Rasputin character in the background with a
financial selfish or political interest in having women remember abuse from 50
years ago.
That alone raises very serious questions as to how and why the crown should
decide to lay charges so long after the event.
The tragedy is that the statute of limitations runs out on a host of other
equally damaging offences a lot earlier.
Now for the other side of the equation, sexual abuse by a father is one of
the worst breaches of fiduciary duty by a parent that one can imagine. Go back a
few decades and it was a lot more rampant that it is now, its also viewed a lot
more seriously than it was then and thats a sad fact that sexual abuse was not
previously treated as seriously as it should
The problem is that women who are such victims, have lives of endless
personality and mental health problems, it destroys lives not only of the women
but also their husbands and partners. Many cannot have a functional relationship
with a man again and many still become professional destroyers of men for no
other reason than an inability to deal with past abuse, and as these women put
it, the perpetrator failed to show any remorse which is what makes the abuse so
damaging over such a long period of time and what drives some women to seek
criminal charges many decades after the offences were committed.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com
Commentary by the Ottawa Men's Centre (not published in the Globe and Mail)
When daughters come forward 60 years later, it raises a great deal of
questions and generally speaking, its far too late to be considering criminal
charges. "children can , I mean can have improper as well as proper motivations.
Improper motivations can mean a Rasputin character in the background with a
financial selfish or political interest in having women remember abuse from 50
years ago.
That alone raises very serious questions as to how and why the crown should
decide to lay charges so long after the event.
The tragedy is that the statute of limitations runs out on a host of other
equally damaging offences a lot earlier.
Now for the other side of the equation, sexual abuse by a father is one of
the worst breaches of fiduciary duty by a parent that one can imagine. Go back a
few decades and it was a lot more rampant that it is now, its also viewed a lot
more seriously than it was then and thats a sad fact that sexual abuse was not
previously treated as seriously as it should
The problem is that women who are such victims, have lives of endless
personality and mental health problems, it destroys lives not only of the women
but also their husbands and partners. Many cannot have a functional relationship
with a man again and many still become professional destroyers of men for no
other reason than an inability to deal with past abuse, and as these women put
it, the perpetrator failed to show any remorse which is what makes the abuse so
damaging over such a long period of time and what drives some women to seek
criminal charges many decades after the offences were committed.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com
Note, the Globe closed this article to comments, the above commentary was NOT
published.