Son of Winnipeg pediatrician testifies father sexually abused him 100 times
WARNING: This story contains description of alleged sexual assaults
Well-known Winnipeg pediatrician Victor Chernick allegedly sexually assaulted his son Richard about 100 times from the boy's preteen years to the age of 17, resulting in years of chronic depression and damaged relationships with family for Richard, a Manitoba court heard Thursday.
"I know we were always scared of him," Richard Chernick, now 56, told Crown attorney Debbie Buors on the second day of his father's trial.
Victor, 82, was charged in January 2014 with incest, buggery, indecent assault and two counts of gross indecency. He has pleaded not guilty.
The trial is being presided over by Court of Queen's Bench Justice Joan McKelvey. It was originally scheduled to take place in November 2017 but was delayed when Victor Chernick checked himself into hospital one week before the trial start date with a liver ailment.
He also did not show up Monday when the trial was set to begin. His lawyers said they learned 30 minutes beforehand he had a medical issue and went to the hospital.
Graphic descriptions of assaults
Richard testified on Thursday that after reporting the incidents in 2013 — alleged to have occurred between 1975 and 1979 — he was hospitalized twice for two months at a time due to depression.
After protecting his father for so many years, Richard says it "finally kind of hit home."
The alleged incidents started when he was 12 and lasted about five years, said Richard, taking place outside the country and at the home where he grew up in Winnipeg. The abuses happened mostly when he was younger and gradually became less frequent as he aged, court heard.
Richard recounted at least four instances of sexual abuse in graphic detail that he says happened in his mid- to late teens, including one case where he says his mother walked in on them.
I felt a need to protect my parents, to protect them so my father wouldn't get into trouble.- Richard Chernick
"We had gotten dressed quickly and then she came into the rec room, left and went back upstairs. My dad finished doing what he was doing. [It] stood out because … my mother interrupted," Richard recalled.
Richard said the final instance of sexual abuse happened when he was 17 and his father hit him in the head.
"He told me he had tried more things with me than with the girls. Then that was it, that was the end of it," Richard said, adding he recalls telling his father to stop.
He said he remembers telling several people about what happened over the years, including his girlfriend, who he later married, and who he says was the first one he spoke with about the allegations.
'I loved my parents'
Richard says he started seeing a psychologist at 18, at his girlfriend's direction. He told two psychologists about the alleged incidents, court heard, and his father also accompanied him on one such appointment to discuss the abuse.
Some time afterward, Child and Family Services called Richard into a meeting, though he says "at that time I wasn't comfortable with coming forward with saying my father was a child molester."
"I felt a need to protect my parents, to protect them so my father wouldn't get into trouble. I loved my parents."
Richard said he remembers his father saying, "Let me get out of the mess you … kids created" before the CFS meeting.
Victor's defence lawyer, Roberta Campbell, questioned whether her client ever made such a comment, as it never appeared in any statements Richard made to police or in a civil lawsuit he filed in 2014.
Campbell said at no point did Victor admit to the psychologist he abused Richard.
On Wednesday, Victor Chernick's sister Robin Tyler, 76, testified.
Chernick's daughter Sharon Chernick and another family member visited her in San Francisco in the early 1980s and told her about the alllegations, Tyler said.
Tyler, 76, also testified that after hearing of the allegations she called her other brother and later travelled to Winnipeg for a meeting with the accused and some other family members.
Tyler could not recall the length of the meeting but said it happened at a Winnipeg hotel and that she told the accused to apologize for what he had done. Tyler told the court she heard him apologize in the meeting.
She said she didn't go to police at the time because that's not what family wanted.
'Everyone knew'
Richard said he and Sharon are in touch, but described his relationship with his mother and father as "nonexistent" for years. He has had no relationship with his other two sisters since coming forward, court heard.
"The fact that everyone knew that my father was a pedophile and they would stand by him — everyone except for Sharon of course… I was made out to be the bad guy of all of this, and I guess that sort of got to me," he said.
Richard and Sharon filed a civil lawsuit in 2014 accusing their father of incest, gross indecency and years where he allegedly "sexually, physically, emotionally and mentally abused, assaulted and traumatized" them.
Victor Chernick denied the allegations. He attributed them to ill will, spite and the result of "fertile imaginations."
Defence questions allegations
Campbell said in court Thursday that the allegations are false.
"I'm going to suggest to you that there was never any sexual contact between you and your father," she told Richard.
She pointed to divorce papers between Richard and his wife a few years before the civil suit that show they were both struggling financially. Campbell argued Richard needed money and that served as motivation to file the civil suit in 2014.
He told police in his August 2013 statement "I'd like to see them go to jail and … take everything they own away from them," court heard.
"I am suggesting to you taking away everything they own means money matters to you," she told Richard.
"I'm going to suggest that this really, for you and your wife and your sister, is about money."
The lawsuit seeks a variety of general and special damages, though Richard testified money had nothing to do with him filing the civil suit. Money from that suit now would go to the government to pay down nearly $200,000 of his debt, he said.
Richard says he just wants to see his father and mother held accountable.
With files from Alana Cole, Dean Pritchard, Vera-Lynn Kubinec and Katie Nicholson.
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