Leroux conviction brings relief to former student

A former student at Inuvik's Grollier Hall says the healing can now begin for a group of former residential school students in northern Saskatchewan.

Harold Cook supported the students of Beauval Indian Residential school in their lawsuit against a former supervisor.

Paul Leroux was accused of molesting boys there, and faced up to 17 charges stemming from the 1960s. Yesterday, he was found guilty on 10 counts of indecent assault.

For Cook, it means those students can now start to move on.

“I was really relieved because the guys from Beauval were waiting a long, long, long time,” Cook says.

This is Leroux's second conviction. In 1998, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for molesting 14 boys at Grollier Hall in Inuvik in the 1970s.

Cook supported the former students from Inuvik that led to Leroux's imprisonment. He was also instrumental in getting the former students from Beauval to press charges.

Leroux represented himself at the trial. He denied all the charges against him and pleaded not guilty to the charges that involved about a dozen former students. He'll be sentenced on the latest convictions in December.