Testimony continued Thursday morning in the trial of a man facing numerous sexual assault charges while an employee at an Indian residential school in northern Saskatchewan during the 1960’s.
Paul Leroux, who was a supervisor of the boys’ dormitory at the Beauval Indian Residential School from 1960 to 1967, is representing himself at the trial in which he faces seventeen separate charges.
Sid Fiddler, a former chief of the Waterhen Lake First Nation who is at the trial to offer support to the alleged victims, says it has been difficult for them to undergo direct cross-examination from the man they have accused of such heinous crimes, but they are willing to do so in the hopes that justice is served.
“Well it’s difficult, I think it all really depends on whether they’ve processed the abuse individually, how you would approach it, but I think by and large we’re facing him as adults,” he says.
A third complainant in the case took the stand at Court of Queen’s Bench in The Battlefords this morning.
This former student of the Beauval Indian Residential School requested that neither the public nor media be present while he gave his testimony.
Leroux was convicted in 1998 of sexually assaulting boys at a residential school in Inuvik.
He was employee at this school from 1967 to 1979.
The trial is expected to last three weeks.