A jury has found former Saskatoon Christian school principal Duff Arthur Friesen guilty on three counts of assault with a weapon involving former students and not guilty on two others.
The jury found the offences in the three counts occurred between September 1997 and June 2007 and that Friesen intentionally applied force with a weapon to the victims without their consent.
Defence lawyer Daniel Mol told jurors Thursday it would be “unsafe” to convict his client based on the accounts of the five witnesses, arguing some memories may have been influenced by people outside the case, including through a separate class-action lawsuit launched by former students against the school.
Judge Daryl Labach reviewed the evidence and the students’ testimony with jurors before they began deliberations.
The five former students testified about the physical and emotional toll of being struck with a paddle by Friesen at what was then known as Christian Centre Academy, now known as Valour Academy.
Labach noted the school’s policy of physically punishing students and heard testimony that the paddles used for discipline were handmade by a member of the church.
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He noted testimony that students were paddled for missing punctuation or misspelling words in their schoolwork.
Labach also relayed testimony from a former student who said he did not view spanking by his parents as abusive, but considered Friesen’s actions abusive because of the severity of the blows.
Several past coworkers of Friesen testified in support of Friesen, including former administrative assistant Louis Brunelle.
Brunelle testified the school’s discipline policy included three swats with a paddle.
He identified himself in a 1997 Maclean’s magazine article entered as evidence, in which he was photographed holding a paddle that victims testified was likely used on them.
Brunelle also testified that he is named as a defendant in a lawsuit for systemic abuse involving the school and the associated church, Christian Centre Ministries, now known as Mile Two.
The 2022 lawsuit is continuing this year after the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal overturned an abuse-of-process ruling by the Court of King’s Bench in Saskatoon.
Friesen has now been convicted of four counts of assaulting students with a weapon during his time at the school, including one count from another trial less than a year ago.
In that case, Friesen received a six-month conditional sentence to be served in the community.
Friesen is to be sentenced after Labach delivers his decision Oct. 16.
