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No more secrets quote10/31/2023 One time, on a bus trip, Clarke grabbed Hamer’s leg and asked if he could keep moving his hand toward the boy’s groin. Hamer said his teacher soon began making inappropriate advances. It was, ‘Oh, yeah, you dating her now? What do you do with her?’” Do you have an erection?’ It was the hugs, constant hugs. “He’d make comments about your body: ‘Oh, I can see your nipples through your shirt, you must be horny. Sometimes he’d tell sexually explicit stories that the teenage boys thought were a bit weird, but funny. Within hours of the teacher’s arrest hitting the news, a second woman, four years older than Howat, came forward with a similar story, leading to more charges against Stanutz.ĭozens of former students, men and women in their late 20s to late 50s, began sharing their stories of sexual abuse at Bell, raising questions about what exactly had gone on inside the west-end school, and how it had been allowed to continue for so long.Īt first, Hamer found the band room a sanctuary of comfort and acceptance where he’d share lunch with his pals and their music teacher, Bob Clarke.Ĭlarke acted like one of the guys, eating french fries and joking around. Stanutz, an award-winning teacher and band leader, was charged with sexual assault and suspended from his job. In 2016, when Howat finally told her therapist about her former music teacher, she couldn’t have known the firestorm she was about to set off, or the web of secrets it would unravel.īy law, her therapist had a duty to report Howat’s story to the Children’s Aid Society and to police.Ī month later, in May 2016, Howat filed a complaint against Stanutz with the sexual assault and child abuse unit of the Ottawa Police Service. “Thinking back then, I knew it was wrong, but the reason I thought it was wrong was because he was married, not because he was my teacher.” “The difference in age was 28 years between myself and Mr. Howat said it wasn’t until a decade after she graduated that she realized how unhealthy that relationship had been. By the time Howat was 16, they were engaging in fondling, masturbation and oral sex on a daily basis. Often, their encounters would take place in the private office attached to the school’s band room. Howat’s mother had died of cancer a couple of years earlier, and the relationship provided the emotional stability she needed. It made me feel so unique and special that he’d seemed to have chosen me out of everyone.” Other girls were prettier and smarter, but he had picked her. “He and I were connected at the hip,” recalled Howat, now 31. They spent as much time together as possible, before school, after school and over lunch. In Grade 11, Laurie Howat had a huge crush on one of the most popular guys at Ottawa’s Bell High School.
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