Bible society unaware of former minister’s pedophilia conviction
BarbBarb SweetPublished on November 29, 2014
It’s troubling that a convicted pedophile was under the radar enough to be included in a history of the Canadian Bible Society without a note of his crime, says a lawyer handling an abuse case against the former minister.
The Telegram Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador
“I wouldn’t want people to alter the history or erase his name from those records, so to speak,” said Will Hiscock of Budden and Associates.
“But at the same there should be an acknowledgment that his services were later seen from a different light, which was not as a giving missionary, but an abusive pedophile who ruined the lives of young children.”
The history of the Bible society was written in 1998, a little over a decade after Stephen James Collins was convicted of sexually abusing children in Newfoundland.
Collins was convicted of abusing children in Baie Verte and LaScie, after he was employed with the Canadian Bible Society. The society told The Telegram this week it has no records or reports of any complaints about Collins’ behaviour while he was employed there to open a district in Canada’s North.
Hiscock is handling a case of a woman who claims she was sexually abused as a child by Collins while he was a United Church minister in this province, before he went to work with the Bible society.
The civil case names Collins as first respondent and the United Church of Canada as second respondent.
The woman’s claims have not been proven in court, but her allegations of what happened to her in the 1960s are similar to what he was convicted of involving other children later on.
Collins had told a psychiatrist at the time of his criminal case that he had not sexually abused children prior to going to the Baie Verte Peninsula, where he was employed as a doctor, but still involved with the United Church as a lay volunteer.
The offences for which Collins was criminally convicted involved children ranging in age from seven to 11 over the period 1975-86 in Baie Verte and La Scie. All but two of the children were girls.
The incidents consisted of displaying and encouraging nudity, photographing and displaying photographs of nude children, fondling, kissing, masturbation, oral sex and attempts at sexual intercourse with a female child.
In 1986, Collins pleaded guilty to seven counts of sexual assault and four counts of indecent assault.
On appeal in 1987, Collins was sentenced to two years in prison and three years’ probation, during which time he was to receive treatment.
In an Ottawa Citizen newspaper story in 1969, Collins apparently suggested to the reporter that he was taking along his St. Bernard dog on his mission up north because it would give him a “ ‘good in,’ especially with Eskimo children.”
According to the history of the Canadian Bible Society, written in 1998, Collins, as the first North West District secretary, started work in September 1969 and headed north with a small mobile home on the back of a three-quarter-ton truck, travelling from community to community.
The passage is brief, and notes only that Collins sold and gave away scripture and collected funds for the society until early summer 1971.
Again, it makes no mention of his eventual conviction. A Bible society spokeswoman said officials were not aware of the scandal surrounding Collins that took place after his employment with the society, and it likely wasn’t on the radar when the book was written by society officials.
According to the spokeswoman, the main author has since died.
Collins is believed to be living in Angola. He was born in Africa to church missionary parents.
The medical board in this province struck his name from its licensing list after he was convicted, but it appears that he was licensed to practise in Angola.
St. John’s lawyer Bob Buckingham has settled one civil case that involves one of the victims Collins pleaded guilty to abusing.
Another case — invoking allegations of abuse from the same time period and area — is before the courts. The plaintiff was not among the children involved in the conviction case .
http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2014-11-29/article-3956034/Bible-society-unaware-of-former-minister%26rsquo%3Bs-pedophilia-conviction/1
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