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of newspaper clippings. If we had not managed to generate alot of media,
we would not have gained public support because the public wouldn't
have known about it.
<
< < | articles and editorials from Jan 6-9 | more |
Sabo's apology | Editorials: StarPhoenix,
Leader Post and National Post >
> > | National Post front page story, Jan. 10 >
> > | Previous coverage
in February, 2004 | April 15/04:
Judge Baynton warns defendants' lawyers not to delay damages
trial | December, 2004: Government
stalls appeal: seeks to intervene on its own behalf | Dueck walks away a wealthy man:
it seems no one has the will to make him account for his malicious
and criminal actions
-
- The Klassen
story
- Breaking
through to the public
-
Lives ruined
Attempted suicides,
drug abuse, broken families
Jason Warick, Saskatchewan
News Network, February 19, 2004
The Klassen and Kvello families
expected their lives would improve after they won their 10-year-old
malicious prosecution lawsuit against justice officials last
December.
Instead, they are barely hanging
on to their sanity. Drug addictions, paranoid delusions, suicide
attempts and other problems now haunt them as they feel they
are being forced to beg for their rightful compensation and an
apology from the three officials who wronged them.
The government has appealed
the case, and it could be many months before they see all of
their money or an apology. In January, the province gave the
plaintiffs an interim payment totalling $1.5 million.
"Each day seems like a
year. The pain is incredible," said plaintiff Pam Shetterly,
who was hospitalized two weeks ago after attempting suicide.
"I'm on the edge and could
fall off any day. Why are they putting us through this? Why should
we have to beg for this? We won."
Today, Shetterly and another
plaintiff, Diane Kvello, and their lawyers Robert Borden and
Ed Holgate, will meet with Premier Lorne Calvert in Saskatoon
to tell him how the whole experience continues to traumatize
them.
Of the other 10 plaintiffs,
two have died and the other eight have chosen not to come to
the meeting.
"I don't feel like I've
won anything. I feel like I'm in hell," said Kvello.
Kvello and Shetterly -- formerly
Klassen -- and the other lawsuit plaintiffs were charged in 1991
with sexually abusing three foster children in a case known at
the time as the "Scandal of the Century."
The charges were eventually
stayed against them, and they later sued for malicious prosecution.
They alleged officials knew there was no case against them but
proceeded anyway.
The group was branded as child
abusers, and their lives changed forever.
In a pointed judgment last
December, Court of Queen's Bench Justice George Baynton ruled
that three officials -- therapist Carol Bunko-Ruys, Saskatoon
Police Service Supt. Brian Dueck and Crown prosecutor Matthew
Miazga -- maliciously prosecuted the 12 plaintiffs.
Baynton called their conduct
"irresponsible," saying that they "consistently
ignored and suppressed" evidence and that they didn't even
believe the case they were trying to make against the 12 people.
He questioned Miazga's and
Dueck's honesty on the witness stand when they testified as defendants
during the lawsuit trial last fall. Bunko-Ruys chose not to testify
in her own defence.
"The plaintiffs did nothing
to deserve what the defendants wrongfully caused to be done to
them," Baynton wrote. "The defendants have no one to
blame but themselves."
Following the ruling, the government
appealed the case to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal. That appeal
will likely be heard sometime after the September trial to decide
on compensation.
Calvert may offer his apology
at today's meeting, as Justice Minister Frank Quennell did at
a meeting earlier this month.
But the scars of the past 13
years can only begin to heal, say the wronged plaintiffs, when
they receive their apology directly from Miazga, Dueck and Bunko-Ruys.
Some of them are literally going mad while they wait.
The plaintiffs include Dale
and Anita Klassen, the couple who agreed to care for the three
troubled foster children -- Michael, Michelle, and Kathy Ross.
The children fabricated wild stories of abuse against Dale and
Anita Klassen, and the false allegations widened to include the
12 plaintiffs and others.
The children have since admitted
none of the 12 plaintiffs ever abused them.
The others are Dale's now-deceased
mother, Marie, his sister Pam Shetterly, Anita's sister Diane
Kvello and now-deceased husband Dennis, his brother John Klassen
and wife Myrna, his other brother Richard Klassen and wife Kari,
and two others who cannot be named because they were youths at
the time.
RICHARD AND KARI KLASSEN
Drug addiction, suicide attempts
Richard Klassen's problems
have been well documented, but he continues to slide downhill.
He's made the case his mission,
and has dedicated every waking moment to clearing his and his
family's name since the day the charges were stayed in 1993.
On that same day, his father, Peter, pleaded guilty to four counts
of sexual assault against the three Ross children and one other
girl. The three Ross children now deny Peter ever abused them.
He spent several years in jail as a result of his guilty plea.
Richard recently was diagnosed
with prostate cancer, and has been trying unsuccessfully to kick
an addiction to sleeping pills and other medication.
Like others in his family,
he attempted suicide in the weeks following the ruling.
Last week, Richard cracked.
He felt an overwhelming need to get away, so he drove through
Saskatchewan's worst storm in years. He went to Calgary, Edmonton
and several other cities before his family rescued him in Kerrobert.
He won't be attending the meeting
because he's in British Columbia. He and his family, as well
as his assistant Angela Geworsky, drove there several days ago
to take a break from the pressure of the case while Richard tries
to kick his sleeping pill addiction.
He hasn't taken a pill for
more than four days. He hasn't slept for more than 15 minutes
at a time during that spell.
"When we won, we thought
it was over," he said.
"But we feel like we lost.
They're playing mind games with us."
DALE AND ANITA KLASSEN
Paranoia, depression and hallucinations
In a telephone interview this
week from his Red Deer home, Dale Klassen said when Baynton ruled
in their favour in December, he and Anita were relieved. But
that didn't last.
"It's like we won, but
then we realized we haven't won. The plaintiffs haven't apologized,
and now they're appealing," Dale said.
"They've fought us tooth
and nail all the way."
Anita sits languishing in the
psychiatric ward of a Red Deer hospital. This stay -- one of
many over the past 13 years -- has lasted more than a week, and
there's no indication she'll be well enough to come home to her
husband and children any time soon.
"We're just trying to
keep our head above water. I'm losing faith," Dale said.
Anita's paranoia, depression
and hallucinations have worsened in recent weeks, as she can't
understand what's happening. She sometimes can't recognize friends
or family members.
This most recent episode was
triggered when the couple drove to Saskatoon for a Feb. 9 meeting
with Quennell.
Several of the plaintiffs attended,
including Dale, but Anita couldn't handle the stress of the event
and stayed in their hotel.
On the way home to Red Deer
the following day, Anita began to hallucinate and see police
cars following them. Dale tried in vain to assure her they were
alone.
When they drove onto their
street in Red Deer, Anita believed there were police cars in
their driveway to arrest them, even though there were none.
Dale just kept driving to the
hospital and Anita was admitted. She's been there ever since.
"How are we supposed to
live like this?" Dale asked. "Every day feels like
an eternity."
The problems go far beyond
Anita's mental health. The couple has three grandchildren, and
they are afraid to hug them, kiss them or play with them for
fear of being accused of abuse.
They've lost many of their
friends, and have pushed other friends away because of their
fragile mental state.
"We trust no one. We keep
everything at a distance," Dale said.
Anita had no mental health
problems before they were arrested in 1991. But during the lawsuit
trial, the videotaped interrogation Dueck conducted on her was
played.
It showed Anita, wearing her
red and brown uniform from the fast food restaurant where she
worked, slowly breaking down.
By the end of the interrogation
-- in which she requested a lawyer several times but was not
granted one -- she was wailing painfully, curled in the fetal
position on the couch.
Since then, Anita and Dale
have wrestled with the guilt they feel for taking in the Ross
children and dragging their families into this nightmare.
But Dale said the other family
members have been very supportive and don't blame them at all.
Dale doesn't want to attend
the meeting. He doesn't want to be away from Anita and his family,
and his employer has already been very understanding during the
various court actions.
JOHN AND MYRNA KLASSEN
Apologies still lacking
John and Myrna Klassen have
tried to keep their distance from the case, in part to protect
their children. During the arrests in July of 1991, their children
were with relatives and were the only ones not apprehended.
Like Dale, John said he won't
be driving to Saskatoon for today's meeting.
"I have some serious reservations
about it. It is so political," he said from his Red Deer
home this week.
"Let's just get this whole
thing over with. We've been damaged. Didn't they read the judgment?"
He goes to bed every night
thinking about the case, and it's the first thing on his mind
when he wakes up.
He, too, wants this ordeal
to end soon with an apology from Miazga, Dueck and Bunko-Ruys,
as well as compensation.
He wants the three officials
to "be held accountable" for what they did to them.
PAM SHETTERLY
Suicide attempt two weeks ago
Pam Shetterly said she's going
to the meeting, and wants Calvert to know the pain she and her
family continue to endure.
She refers to herself as "QB271"
-- the file number of their lawsuit that was filed back in 1994.
"Now the political games
begin. We haven't gotten around the (Monopoly) board yet. We
haven't been allowed to collect our $200," she said.
Pam has been married five years
and lives in Outlook. She is thankful for her husband's support
in these tough times, but said she feels like she still can't
cope with the stress.
Pam, who also had no previous
history of mental illness, has been in and out of hospital for
the past 13 years, and attempted suicide again two weeks ago.
The reasons for her pain are
complex, but they all stem from this case.
She agreed to take in a foster
child with severe physical handicaps. She loved him as her own
son for several years, caring for him after countless corrective
surgeries and hospital visits.
When she was arrested, the
boy was taken away by Saskatchewan's Department of Social Services.
Two years later, when the charges against her and the others
were stayed, she spent eight months in a psychiatric ward in
Saskatoon.
When discharged, she asked
to get her son back, but was turned down.
Pam has been told where the
boy lives in Saskatchewan, but hasn't tried to contact him. She
said it would be too painful for both of them.
"I was a good mother.
They ripped him from my arms. I'll never have him again. Never,"
she said.
When the 12 plaintiffs were
given an interim or "ex gratia" payment totalling $1.5
million last week, Pam said she couldn't bring herself to spend
any of it.
"This is blood money.
It feels like they're paying me for selling them my son,"
Shetterly said, crying loudly.
The malicious prosecution has
also destroyed the relationship between Shetterly and the Klassen
siblings.
She is "terrified"
to touch her nieces and nephews, and the children don't understand
why. They haven't gotten together as a family in years.
Shetterly is also frustrated
that her mother, Marie, could not see the day they won the case.
Marie died several years ago of cancer.
"If my mother could have
defended herself, she certainly would have. It is now our responsibility
and we will do that," Pam said outside court during the
lawsuit last fall.
THE KVELLOS
'I'm scared of everything'
Diane Kvello, like Shetterly,
plans to attend the meeting with Calvert this morning.
She also lost foster children
when she was arrested.
"You love these children
and then they're taken away because of these lies. We wanted
to adopt them," Kvello said in a highly emotional interview.
This case has also caused her
to grow afraid of physical contact. Her birth children received
little physical affection, and Diane and husband, Dennis, could
not even touch each other.
Just before Dennis died of
cancer, on his birthday in June of 2000, he asked Diane to lay
down in his hospital bed and hold him, but she couldn't.
"Then he died with this
hanging over his head. My God," she said.
She contracted multiple sclerosis
and fybromyalgia several years ago, and also has numerous mental
health issues.
"You're always scared
someone's watching you -- maybe the phone is bugged," she
said.
Kvello is afraid to go to the
doctor or a counsellor because she thinks they'll leak any confidential
information to police.
She rarely leaves her house.
When she needs food, she doesn't go to the grocery store because
she's afraid of crowds judging her and of being accused of touching
children.
Instead, she shops for food
at gas stations, where there are fewer people.
"I'm scared of everything,"
she said. "This case has destroyed all of us."
© Copyright 2004 The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell