Cape Breton man, 91, admits to historical sexual assaults on children

A 91-year-old Cape Breton man has admitted to a horrific pattern of abuse involving nine children during a period from 1966 to 1981 in the Petit-de-Grat, N.S., area.

Delmore Boudreau pleaded guilty to 10 charges during an appearance in Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Port Hawkesbury on Wednesday afternoon. The charges include sexual assault, gross indecency and multiple counts of indecent assault. The latter two charges no longer exist in the Criminal Code.

Boudreau was handed a suspended sentence of three years probation and his name goes on the national sex-offender registry. He must also give a DNA sample and he has been ordered to stay away from places frequented by children.

In a statement read in court by his daughter-in-law, Boudreau apologized for his crimes and the hurt he caused. Two of his victims read impact statements in which they accused him of stealing their childhoods.

Boudreau's guilty pleas come just days before he was to stand trial on these charges.

The victims, eight girls and one boy, are all middle-aged now.

Victims were 4-6 when abuse started

In an agreed statement of facts, the victims said the abuse for each of them started when they were very young, anywhere from four to six years old.

In most cases, the victims said Boudreau would lure them into the basement of his house where he would remove some or all of their clothes and molest them. In most cases, the abuse lasted for at least a couple of years.

Several of the victims said Boudreau would give them candy after he molested them and tell them it was a secret and that they would get in trouble if they told anyone what he was doing to them.

One victim told police that when, in her early 20s, she found out Boudreau was abusing other girls, she told her father, who didn't believe her. She had to get another relative to corroborate her story before her father would believe what she was saying.

"I became the bitch of the community for almost ruining a marriage," the woman told police.

Boudreau threatened with violence

According to the agreed statement that was submitted to the court, the victim's father confronted Boudreau and told him he would shoot him if he didn't get therapy.

Another woman told police that when her parents found out she'd been a victim of abuse, her father wanted to go to Boudreau's house with a gun. But the victims also told police that they didn't approach authorities when they were younger because they didn't think they'd be believed.

One of the mothers said in the statement that she confronted Boudreau because if her husband had done so, he would have lost his cool.

'Inconceivable to go to the law'

While she confronted Boudreau and told him to get help and stay away from her children, she stopped short of going to police.

"In those days it was inconceivable to go to the law with this story because you were sure that you would not have been taken seriously and figured the men always won," she said in the statement.

"Also, I did not want to target my children."

It wasn't until the fall of 2017 that the victims started coming forward separately to give their stories to police. While the interviews were done at different times and locations with different police officers, there were similarities in the abuse they described.