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B.C. Supreme Courtroom Justice says group’s response was ‘shockingly callous’ and made issues worse for Indigenous diver
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Canada’s premier diving group took greater than six years to answer an allegation made by considered one of its divers that he had been sexually assaulted by a coach, says B.C. Supreme Courtroom Justice Gareth Morley.
In March 2013, retired Indigenous diver Wegadesk Dana Gorup-Paule despatched an e-mail to the president of Diving Plongeon Canada alleging he had been sexually molested by former coach Trevor Palmatier at a diving competitors in Quebec Metropolis in 2004 when he was 17.
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This e-mail was forwarded to DPC Chief Working Officer Penny Joyce, who then contacted the group’s insurer.
Nevertheless, neither Joyce or anybody else from DPC reached out to Gorup-Paule or responded in any means.
“He was ghosted,” Morley wrote.
In November 2015, Gorup-Paule reached out on to Joyce and was ignored. He emailed the group once more in February 2016 nevertheless it was not till October 2019 that Joyce responded to Gorup-Paule to say they have been open to paying compensation.
Palmatier was discovered responsible of historic sexual assault in opposition to a younger male diver in 2016 and has not defended himself in opposition to Gorup-Paule’s claims. The DPC has by no means challenged that the abuse occurred.
“I discover DPC’s lack of any response to Mr. Gorup-Paule for over six years after he offered them with a reputable allegation of sexual abuse by a outstanding coach to be shockingly callous,” Morley wrote.
“Elite sport is analogous to a tight-knit spiritual group within the degree of dedication it expects from its members and the extent to which it turns into the person’s social community. By reacting to Mr. Gorup-Paule’s allegations by refusing to speak with him, DPC exacerbated the harm.”
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In 2021, Gorup-Paule agreed to a $600,000 compensation package deal. Nevertheless, he has requested for that package deal to be renegotiated as a result of he says he was beneath duress on the time he signed. The defendants within the new motion requested that Gorup-Paule be declared a vexatious litigant. These defendants embody Palmatier, DPC, B.C. Diving, Pacific Coast Diving and Aviva Insurance coverage Canada.
“(Gorup-Paule) says he was in poverty when he agreed to settle the earlier motion as a direct results of the abuse he suffered and that he signed the settlement settlement in opposition to [his] real will. He says the failure of the diving defendants to answer him for years after the abuse was uncovered added to what he calls his burdens and he says that he was in an economically and psychologically weak state,” Morley wrote.
Gorup-Paule began diving in 1997 at age 10 and by 2000 was touted as a possible future Olympic competitor.
In October 2004, he gained bronze within the 10-metre platform on the World Junior Championships and was put ahead by DPC as a task mannequin for Indigenous youth and a possible star.
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Regardless of his long-proclaimed aim of competing within the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Gorup-Paule ended his diving profession in 2007.
He says this was a direct results of alleged abuse by Palmatier, which he says drove him into substance abuse, culminating in a drunk driving accident shortly earlier than the trials for the 2008 Olympics.
Palmatier was a diving coach in Victoria from 1997 to 2007, after which he moved to Edmonton, the place he continued to educate till he was arrested in 2013 and later charged with intercourse crimes associated to a youngster in Victoria between 2004 and 2006.
He was discovered responsible in 2015, at which level he was expelled from DPC. In 2016, he was given a conditional sentence and didn’t serve time in jail.
Morley rejected each Gorup-Paule’s request to renegotiate the settlement and the defendants’ request that Gorup-Paule be declared a vexatious litigant.
“Mr. Gorup-Paule is charismatic and honest,” Morley wrote.
“He clearly has discovered some which means in struggling on behalf of youth and former youth who’ve skilled or are liable to experiencing sexual abuse in sport. This can be a good trigger. Nothing I’ve mentioned in the present day means he can not pursue that trigger successfully and responsibly. However a civil motion for the accidents Mr. Palmatier has achieved to him is one thing he has already freely settled, and so he should discover another path.”
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Palmatier has by no means been charged with sexual offences associated to Gorup-Paule.
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dcarrigg@postmedia.com
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