The letter below was sent to my 5 aunts - and I am sad to say that I did not receive any answers to my questions.  I rec'd a 2 line letter from one aunt and an email from another aunt that really had nothing to do with my letter. 

At the time that I wrote this email to them my police officer was fighting fiercely to provide Crown Counsel any little bit of information that she could to assist them in moving forward with the recommended charges. I wrote this email and forwarded it to her for her approval, corrections on any dates, etc. and confirmation that it would not jeopordize the file in anyway. 

 Crown Counsel in BC are the office that takes the police files and decides if the charges will be laid.  I understand that in other provinces the police lay the charges and Crown moves ahead with defence.  If that were the case in BC none of the 3 years of creating a file the size of that we did would have had to happen.  Trust me - I would have walked into that court room with my head held high while someone else would have folded like a cheap tent in the parking lot. 

The chief prosecutor who was assigned all of the sexual abuse/assualt cases looked at my file and all of the information and he spoke with my officer and he wanted to proceed but......he could not override  the gate keeping committee who made all decisions about whether charges were laid or not.  How's that for a kick in the heart?

This is the letter I sent:

I am about to share with you some very difficult information that you will likely find hard to read and hard to accept.  However, the time is right to expose a situation that has likely been perpetuated for many years within our family.  There is no doubt in my mind that this has been a generational issue and perhaps one of you reading this letter can even relate on a personal level.

For many years your brother, Bernard perpetrated a sexually abusive crime against me.  You should also know that I was not his first target but unfortunately I was the weaker person and found myself in a situation that took me many years to get out and one that I will likely be coping with the aftermath from for the rest of my life. 

In the summer of 2006 I started therapy to deal with the overwhelming anxiety that I had.  Anxiety to the point that I had great difficulty even leaving my home to go to work.  Anxiety that kept me from sleeping most nights.  Anxiety that was consuming most of my mental energy.  During the course of treatment I finally found a safe place where I could disclose the reason for my anxiety.  For the next 11 months, in a safe and trusting environment, I worked hard to get to a place where I was able to confront your brother with this accusation and to illustrate to him what the result of his actions had been on my life.  A Confrontation was scheduled for June 2, 2007 and your brother attended this meeting held with myself, himself and my therapist.  I read a letter which I had written to him.  After hearing this letter your brother offered up the following:  1/ that he had been sexually abused by 2 of his sisters and 2/ that "if it was an apology you want you've got it".  A direct self incriminating statement that was given in a most flippant and unremorseful manner.  And, in case you might be thinking that this is a situation of

” therapist induced memory,” his lack of denial, arrogant behavior and unfeeling apology are proof that I am not making any of this up. I had wanted this meeting to be one of healing and moving forward and I had hoped that he would be remorseful and ask for my forgiveness.  He did neither.

His arrogant attitude led me to make a very difficult decision - I asked my therapist to arrange for me to report this abuse to the RCMP.  On Tuesday June 12, 2007 I met with a detective from the Serious Crimes Division and spent 2 hours telling her things that I thought I would never ever have to tell another person. To illustrate the fact that the police detective believed me - I was given the decision to make - do I want to go ahead and have them arrest him at his home right at that time or did I want to give him the opportunity to come into the detachment and voluntarily present himself. I suspect that if she did not believe me this choice would not have been offered to me.  I chose to give him the opportunity to present himself which he did. The following Monday he was arrested, handcuffed and put into a cell and then interrogated by a detective.  At no time did he ever deny this allegation nor did he offer up a defense. He had however, obtained legal counsel by this time.

Following his arrest he asked to speak to the detective once again.  He met with her at the detachment where he disclosed the following to her:  That at the age of approx. 12 years old he was sexually abused by my mother.  This would mean that she would have been approx. 21/22 years of age and married to my father.  When this information was disclosed to me I cannot tell you how sick I felt. I sat down on the kitchen floor and cried.  There are only 2 choices here - either he is lying or he is telling the truth.  Since my mother is deceased I have no opportunity to even confront her with this statement.  Perhaps that is why he made this statement, knowing that she could never defend herself.  I don't know.  All I know is that today I am haunted by this allegation.  This file has gone before Crown Counsel who have asked for more information which I have since supplied.  The file will be going back to Crown Counsel in the near future.

The reason for this information being shared with you is this: if you can either confirm or provide proof that he is lying regarding any of his allegations I would very much appreciate that.  I can imagine how you might be feeling right at this point.  I've been there.  It's not pleasant.  But as I stated earlier, I have no doubt that I was not the first victim of sexual abuse in this family over the past generations and unless this is confronted and dealt with I will not be the last.  I have paid a very high price for this "secrecy".   Perhaps I may not have even suffered the abuse that I did if this had been dealt with in a previous generation.  But, I am dealing with it now.  I only wish my mother were alive so that I could have the truthful answers that I desperately need.  I'll also accept that you may feel this is just too awful to even think about and choose to not respond.  I welcome your positive responses but please, before you respond, understand that I am not capable of dealing with any negative or harsh replies at this time.  I only want to know the truth as dealing with the unknown is far harder than learning to accept the known.  If you were in my place would you not want to know? 

I have to ask this question:  Why is the truth so hard for some people to face? The truth shall set you free.  Hiding your head in the sand so that you cannot see all that is happening around you will only result in you not seeing the boot aimed directly for your ass. I love this sentence!  A fellow Realtor shared it with me and the simplistic truth of it is just too good not to pass on!