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Convicted pedophile living in Val Caron

BY CRAIG GILBERT [email protected] A former Roman Catholic priest, described as a ?predator? by one of his victims, is out of jail and living in Sudbury just 16 months after he was sentenced for 16 sexual offences against young girls.
BY CRAIG GILBERT

A former Roman Catholic priest, described as a ?predator? by one of his victims, is out of jail and living in Sudbury just 16 months after he was sentenced for 16 sexual offences against young girls.

Donald Holmes
Donald Holmes is living on Hwy 69 North in Val Caron, and Greater Sudbury Police say he is a high risk to re-offend.

Holmes was suspended from all church and placed on administrative leave after one woman made an allegation of indecent assault in the fall of 1999.

In May 2002, he was found guilty of 12 charges of indecent assault against 12 young girls between 1972 and 1984 at one Sturgeon Falls and two Sudbury parishes.

Holmes denied the charges that he fondled, touched, hugged, kissed and groped the girls.

Less than 10 days after that conviction, he was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault stemming from incidents at a Sault Ste. Marie swimming pool in 1987.

Those girls were under the age of 12.

In August 2002, he was sentenced to two years less a day for the indecent assault charges. He served a one-year sentence for the sexual assaults concurrently.

When defense counsel Andrew Buttazzoni asked that the jury be polled after the guilty verdict for the indecent assault charges, Northern Life reported at the time, one juror stood, looked straight at Holmes and barked ?guilty? 14 times.

?I could have stood up right there and shook his hand,? said one former alter server who was French-kissed by Holmes as a 12-year-old.

?This jury made it clear they were disgusted by what he did to us.?

Holmes is described by police as a 5-foot-9, 176 lbs with a grey receding hairline cut short. He is 65, has a mustache and wears glasses over his brown eyes.

Police say they consider Holmes a risk to re-offend because of identifiable risk factors associated with him.

?If these risk factors remain unchanged there is a high probability that Holmes will engage in further criminal acts.?


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