When he was five years old, Steven Morin said good-bye to his mother. Both his family and the province agreed he’d be better off in the foster system.

Twenty-two years later, Morin is suing the province for $11 million for what he says he endured while in care. His lawsuit outlines four years of abuse.

“Catastrophic. It affected me in a bad, bad way,” said Morin during a recent interview.

The statement of claim filed last week in an Edmonton court says Morin’s foster mother lived with a man named John Beaver.

Shortly after Morin arrived in the home, the lawsuit claims Beaver began to sexually assault the five-year-old boy.

“John Beaver physically, emotionally and sexually assaulted [Morin] and the other foster children in his care from Jan. 1, 1998 to April 30, 2006 and took photographs of the sexual abuse, thereby making child pornography,” reads part of the lawsuit.

The statement of claim goes on to say Morin told nobody about the abuse.

“He waited for somebody to save him from his tortuous life. [Morin] was too afraid for his life to take any actions to protect himself from the abuse.

“He was just a small child and could not protect himself. He relied on his guardian, Alberta Child Welfare to protect him. He lived in constant fear.”

The province may not have known what was happening inside the foster home. But the lawsuit alleges it knew or ought to have known about similar crimes committed by Beaver.

In 1997, around the same time Morin came to live at his home, Beaver was charged with the sexual assault of a girl in Slave Lake and child pornography offences. Two years later, he pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography. He received a six-month jail sentence.

Morin says he remembers his foster mother telling him Beaver wouldn’t be around for a while.

“I was told by my foster mother that John had to go to work and John was going to be gone for about a year,” said Morin.

Upon Beaver’s release, the lawsuit claims he returned to the foster home.

“He comes back to live at the home and that’s when the abuse really, really picked up,” Morin told Global News.

The lawsuit says Children’s Services should never have allowed Beaver’s return saying, “Alberta Child Welfare was aware or ought to have been aware of the criminal charges of Dec. 10, 1997 laid against John Beaver and negligently forced [Morin] to live with John Beaver.

“Alberta Child Welfare was negligent in investigating and monitoring John Beaver and negligently failed to discover that John Beaver was charged with sexual abuse related crimes involving children.”

In 2004, when Morin was 12 years old, he was living in a group home and told a worker there about the abuse.

Three years later, police filed 13 sexual assault-related charges against Beaver. The counts allege he victimized multiple children over eight years. Police issued a warrant for Beaver’s arrest.

Six years after the charges were filed, the lawsuit says Beaver was taken into custody. He died before he could stand trial.

Robert Lee is Morin’s lawyer. He says the details of his client’s case are disturbing but not surprising.

“I hear stories like Steven’s all the time,” said Lee. “That’s the very saddest thing about this.”

Lee says his experience handling decades worth of child welfare cases suggests social workers must handle heavy caseloads. As a result, he says, “mistakes are made.”

Lee hopes lawsuits like this one prompt the province to try to avoid big lawsuits by spending more money to hire more people to prevent abuse.

“In my view, the big issue is leadership,” said Lee. “We know what many of the problems in child welfare are and how to fix them. But there’s no desire.

“Because their lives are destroyed, they really have no mechanism to fight back because these cases take forever.”

The province confirmed it has been served with the lawsuit but in an email, said it would not be saying anything more about the case because it is before the courts.

None of the allegations in the statement of claim have been tested in court.

Source: Read Full Article