A basketball coach who sexually abused a student at his high school ultimately pleaded guilty to a reduced charge, escaping a sexual assault conviction.
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“The actions occurred several times a week at the beginning, the frequency gradually decreased,” explained M.e Jérôme Laflamme of the Crown, this Tuesday at the Montreal courthouse.
Charles-Xavier Boislard
Photo provided by SPVM
Just before, Charles-Xavier Boislard, 45, pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a teenage girl who was studying at the Saint-Laurent secondary school at the time, around 2012.
In exchange, the Crown dropped the charges of sexual interference, as well as sexual assault.
Disadvantaged victim
Coming from a disadvantaged background, the teenager had fallen under the yoke of Boislard, who helped her, for example, to get to medical appointments.
“I had no one, I depended on him at the time… He did all that, so I felt obliged,” the victim testified during the preliminary investigation.
The abuse mainly occurred at Boislard, who then lived with his father.
“Sometimes I missed school,” explained the complainant, whose identity is protected by the court.
According to the facts admitted by the accused, the victim was then 16 years old. The problem is that the latter claims that she had 15.
“The first time, I was 15, it was the year I was in secondary 3,” she said at the preliminary investigation.
The issue of age was important, since it could have an impact on the charges against Boislard. Thanks to his lawyer, Me Eddy Ménard, the latter finally got what he wanted, because even if the recognized facts do not explicitly indicate the age of the victim, they cover the time when the victim was 16 years old.
Another coach too
And once Boislard’s crimes stopped, the teenager would then have fallen under the yoke of Daniel Lacasse, another coach from the same school. The latter, whose trial began this fall, denied everything.
Photo MICHAËL NGUYEN
The arrest of the two coaches in 2022 and that of a third, Robert Luu, aged 34, created a shock wave at the Marguerite-Bourgeoys School Service Center.
An investigation by the Ministry of Education then lifted the veil on a harmful climate among the basketball players at this school, with inappropriate behavior that no one reported.
Boislard will return to court later for oral arguments on the sentence to be imposed on him.
