The Roman Catholic Diocese of London will pay out $400,000 to three men who say they were abused by former priest Father Linus Bastien during his time at St. Paul's Parish in LaSalle.
The men launched a $3.1-million civil suit against Bastien and the Diocese in the fall of 2015 when it became obvious Bastien was in poor health and may not survive to see the end of his criminal proceedings. He faced sexual assault charges and died in June 2016.
"These were three gentlemen that saw the writing on the wall with the criminal process and decided to launch the lawsuit as a sort of backup plan so there would be some adjudication or some legal look at the matter," says the lawyer representing the three men, Rob Talach. "As we know Father Bastien died before his five-year criminal prosecution came to its end. That left only the civil lawsuits to be the mechanism for these gentlemen."
Talach represents five other victims of Bastien and says the settlement bodes well for the other lawsuits too.
"They were sort of the pioneers," he says. "Moving forward if individuals were in the wrong place at the wrong time it'll simply be a quantification of their loss."
When Bastien died, the criminal proceedings died too. Talach says there is no mechanism in Canada for victims to pursue criminal charges against the Diocese.
The Diocese was not required to apologize, but Talach believes there was an acknowledgement of abuse.
"You don't pay out that kind of money without acknowledging that there was misconduct," says Talach.
Bastien served as a priest at parishes across Windsor-Essex in the 1970s and 1980s.
