Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Port Alberni, British Columbia, Canada · 1995

Canada: Alberni residential-school supervisor sentenced as a 'sexual terrorist'

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

dormitory supervisor at a United Church-run residential school

Organization

Alberni Indian Residential School, United Church of Canada

Spiritual nexus

Indigenous children were removed from their families into church-run residential schools, where staff held total custodial, disciplinary and spiritual authority — the institutional structure the courts and the TRC identified as the mechanism of the abuse.

  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 1995-03-01 · guilty plea and sentence; civil liability affirmed by the SCC

    BC Supreme Court (Justice Hogarth); Supreme Court of Canada (Blackwater v. Plint, 2005). Arthur Henry Plint pleaded guilty to 18 counts of indecent assault against boys at the Alberni Indian Residential School spanning 1948–1953 and 1963–1968, and was sentenced to 11 years. Justice Hogarth called him a 'sexual terrorist' and described the residential-school system as 'a form of institutionalized pedophilia'. In Blackwater v. Plint (2005) the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the liability of church and government.

Appellate history

  1. 2005 · undefined

    undefined

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • total custodial authority over Indigenous children removed from their families

Primary record

Sources

national newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report Globe and Mail, reporting on R. v. Plint (1995) and Blackwater v. Plint (SCC 2005).

Reports the guilty plea, the sentence, and the judge's remarks.

Related record

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