BURST
A class-action lawsuit alleging the province ignored reports of a B.C. prison guard allegedly sexually assaulting more than 200 inmates over 20 years has been certified by the B.C. Supreme Court.
Roderic MacDougall is named as the defendant, along with the province, in the lawsuit seeking damages on behalf of inmates who say they were sexually assaulted by him.
“Despite having access to ample credible evidence about MacDougall’s recurrent sexual misconduct, the provincial Crown repeatedly chose not to protect the plaintiff and class members from a serial sexual predator for a period of more than two decades,” the lawsuit alleges.
The certification order was consented to by the province’s lawyers at a hearing Monday, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Saro Turner, said on Wednesday.
That paves the way for the Slater Vecchio law firm to send out notices through the media and the internet and by directly contacting known victims to alert them of the upcoming action, he said.
More than 500 former inmates have already contacted the firm and about 200 of them meet the requirements to join the lawsuit, Turner said.
It is unknown how many men will eventually join the class-action lawsuit, as any potential victim has the right to opt out of the class, sometimes to file his own lawsuit, Turner said. There have been dozens of lawsuits filed against MacDougall.
Turner said there is also no way to estimate the eventual size of the lawsuit because, “It’s very difficult for many of these men to come forward to talk about what happened to them.”
The suit alleges MacDougall touched the inmates’ genitals and forced oral sex on them, forced them to touch his genitals and perform oral sex on him and forced anal penetration on them, according to the lawsuit.
MacDougall worked as a corrections officer at four B.C. jails between 1976 and 1997, mostly at Oakalla Prison in Burnaby. He was criminally charged in 1998, the year after he quit his job.
MacDougall, believed to be in his 70s and living in Metro Vancouver, did not respond in court to many of the lawsuits filed against him over the years.
He maintained his innocence at a criminal trial in 2022, where he was convicted of sexual assault, indecent assault and extortion in connection with five teenaged inmates in the 1980s.
The suit alleges the province did not take adequate steps to protect inmates after becoming aware of reports of MacDougall’s sexual predation from other guards who advised management about it. It alleges the province is vicariously liable for the assaults and was negligent in its duty to protect the inmates.
Turner said there is a mediation hearing scheduled for the fall.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
With files from Dan Fumano