New abuse revelations at U.S.-based cult tied to Ontario private school | School of secrets

the following program may contain scenes that may be disturbing to some viewers viewer discretion is advised on this edition of the fifth estate return to the school of secrets in november we told you about grenville christian college which boasted of providing superior education in a christian setting but what many students here really got was physical emotional and sexual abuse the brainwashing was so effective and of course the threat of violence the constant threat of violence there were troubling questions about the link to a mysterious american cult do you really think that there is some way of linking the two women in the winnebago to apparent acts of abuse of students that occurred 700 miles away and what was the role of one of the highest ranking chaplains in the canadian armed forces he was there through some pretty horrendous psychological physical abuse of children and there's no way he can say he didn't know what was going on now for the first time someone who spent her childhood in the middle of it speaks out and fights back he repeatedly has denied that his father has done anything wrong that the school did anything wrong and that his brother did anything wrong and then out of the blue he's writing me and saying essentially that he he knew i was shocked i'm bob mcewen in maitland ontario where we first reported on systemic abuse of students here at what was then called grenville christian college well we're back because a lot has happened since our original story as you'll see as we revisit the school of secrets this is the fifth estate today it's a vacant building but more than a decade after its doors closed this school in eastern ontario still touches a nerve when we filmed here last summer we were approached by former grenville insider donald farnsworth a defender of the school and fierce opponent of its critics what happened to them specifically sexual abuse i i don't know anything that's been corroborated by a witness or by anyone else i only know of individuals is that not the problem with sexual abuse that it's usually not witnessed uh you guys don't seem to know the truth very well much more about mr farnsworth later but first to know the truth you've got to go back to what went on behind these impressive stone walls on the banks of the saint lawrence river almost 50 years ago it's a perfect setting for the kind of boarding school where the idle rich learn and play but grenville christian college isn't like that from the start there were signs grenville christian college was different we got together and said let's let's begin to run our ship here with what we'll call tough love the school's head master in the 1970s explained his tough love philosophy to the cbc we have these great big schools with 2 000 kids in it the alternative is the one room schoolhouse where you had a real mother there who cared for the kids who spanked their bottoms when they they were wrong is that the way it is here that's the way it is here tough perhaps but the school enjoyed a stellar reputation and the support of an ontario who's who board members and patrons included a senator and two former lieutenant governors of the province in 1995 mclean's magazine published a flattering article in it a teacher named gordon mintz said he'd never seen a more caring school the author described the headmaster charles farnsworth as a warm anglican priest with a down-home style farnsworth was an anglican priest because the church made him one when it endorsed the school in 1977 flying the anglican flag charles farnsworth was the headmaster of the school he was our priest and he was my parents boss grace irving spent her entire childhood at the school where her father was a teacher she was one of what were called the staff kids i imagine you're familiar with this term light sessions for instance um which was based on a belief that you know a group of people would get together and you'd bring bring someone's sin or their struggles into the light irving says those so-called light sessions often were led by headmaster farnsworth more confrontation than therapy they could involve almost everyone teachers students rich kids and staff kids there could often be yelling or screaming these could go on at times for hours they could turn physically abusive if some person does the beating some person gets beaten then you know they all switch roles musical chairs and it's like that's the kind of light sessiony thing it's it's this weird abusive situation ewan white spent three years at grenville christian college in his early teens when his mother taught there there's there's lots of slapping there was lots of uh you know they would they'd beat the children with belts sometimes i mean they were calling them things were terrible things think such as they were seductresses that they were i mean i don't even want to say no some of the names donna robertson worked at the school for three decades including as a guidance counselor she's recently been speaking out to support former students who've also broken their silence to talk to us i mean i could cry when i think of what some of those young girls were subjected to i was told that if i ever left i'd be out on the street i'd be out walking the street my daughter she told me that charles told her if she ever left within a year she'd be an alcoholic and she'd be pregnant what do you who says that to a kid robertson's daughter don was then another of the staff kids like many grenville families they had strong ties to the school jobs home finances faith bonds hard to break and among granville's core beliefs was that teachers knew how to parent the students better than their own families did my biggest sin was my idolatry towards my children and at first meaning putting them in a place setting them up in a place more higher than they deserved for her sins as a parent donna was forced to live apart from her daughter forbidden even to say hello when dawn turned 18 she moved away i wanted to go through the door and i was blocked from going outside that door and i remember looking out the front window and seeing her get in a car a friend had come to pick her up and i can remember seeing her go and honest to god i can still feel it to this day it literally literally broke my heart i can still feel it to this day it literally broke my heart in 2008 former grenville students filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the school had engaged in a system of excessive and abusive punishments it was in court for over a decade then this last week an ontario superior court judge ruled the school must pay damages to former students over the abuse they suffered at the school decades ago in february 2020 a sweeping victory for the students on page after page a clear ruling upheld on appeal affirmed essentially everything the class action suit had claimed concluding the evidence of maltreatment and the varieties of abuse perpetrated on students bodies and minds was class wide and decades wide i felt that just the judge in this case really did understand the picture the full picture but why would anyone especially teachers and their families agree to live in a situation like that enduring abuse for decades the answer may lie hundreds of kilometers away in cape cod massachusetts at a place called the community of jesus the community is powerful they have people in all kinds of positions in the town you know they have lots of people with money there they have they have influence we don't call promiscuity today whoredom i don't care what we call it that's what it is whoredom on the shores of cape cod in massachusetts is a place called the community of jesus it's a controversial religious group founded in the 1960s by two women known simply as k and judy or the mothers they're stern sermons believed to come straight from god [Music] today we have a generation of [ __ ] and some of them are your sons and daughters the community of jesus is a fellowship of christian disciples called by our lord jesus christ and dedicated to the honor of his name according to its website the group was founded on love and obedience about 275 members some known as brothers and sisters living in what's called a monastic community under the strict guidance of the two mothers [Music] we went to cape cod to find out more about the community unlike grenville christian college it's still operating [Music] it's where we connected with the buddington family dan is a chef at a local restaurant his mother carrie and sister ruth are visiting from out of town most fun that i had with us as a family was one time when we were in trouble and they sent us to live in a small house by ourselves and that christmas was so much fun but we were by ourselves finally the three buddingtons spent decades of their lives at the community of jesus carrie herself spent 41 years there eventually becoming a sister who helped to run the community i soon learned that strict obedience means kay and judy were the voice of god so what they said you did the more power they got the more they wielded it and along with the mother's power would come privilege and money we doted on them the sisters prepared the meals took care of their apartment they were maids to them vacations travel yep they had a full-size pool winnebago they were always on vacations the religious group's cape cod real estate is now worth many millions of dollars and members tie the percentage of their income to the church they also had a plane for a little while and they had their own pilot they were always on vacation yeah carrie came to the community in her 20s soon to be a young mother with a baby girl named ruth this next part may sound familiar so i got a visit one day from this woman and one of the head sisters with a message from kay and judy that they felt for her sake it'd be better if they took her away from me and had her live with somebody else just imagine how much pressure and fear it takes to stop me from being a mother [Music] years later at 13 ruth tried to run away but was returned to the community by the police they didn't know what to do with me because the community is powerful they have people in all kinds of positions in the town you know they have lots of people with money there they have they have influence ultimately a family court judge became involved and the buddingtons say they were instructed to get counseling specifically from outside the community of jesus in the meantime kay and judy had given us the directive to pack up our suitcase put suitcase in the trunk and we went to the glass court hearing they made the order in the courthouse i went and got in the car the car had already been packed and they drove me straight to canada away from the courthouse and the court order straight to grenville christian college we all know there was that kay and judy ran gcc from a distance farnsworth was under their authority there was a big connection a strong connection i can still remember the first day when kay and judy came up that driveway in their winnebago and then everything went topsy-turvy former grenville employee donna robertson recalls when the mothers from the community of jesus first brought their unique brand of worship to canada and the grenville school kay and judy how did how did they present themselves they were coming to to fix us to fix us she says the mothers had been invited by grenville leadership in 1973 then the community of jesus returned the favor and the next thing we knew they had hired buses and we went down to the community and we did not know what hit us like everything was turned upside down the thing that stands out to me most all the ladies we sat around in a garden in a circle in chairs and if you had long hair out came the scissors and off came the hair emotional and physical violence is just going to be part of your daily life and that's it former student ewan white and his mother also lived on cape cod at the community of jesus before moving to canada and the grenville school it's where he was first exposed to their abusive practices i had vomited at a meal and they said you're going to eat it and adult cult member there was pounding my head on the floor it was hitting me and i'm scooping it up off the floor and i'm eating my own vomit i think anyone looking at this would see it as severe child abuse you know i was pushed down the stairs it's about 10 and these are the kind of people they were this is the kind of discipline that you would get at the community white is a published writer and poet who's teamed up with university of toronto professor ruth marshall the community of jesus it's another grant i guess to granville christian college together they're digging for proof of the connection between the ontario school and the controversial u.s christian group the community of jesus appears to want to stay as far away as possible from the abuse allegations and the associated litigation i looked into for example and i've done all the forensic research which is following the money is is is always the best advice first stop on the paper trail a deed showing that grenville christian college had owned property and a house adjacent to the community of jesus then this document while the court said the board of directors had no formal control at grenville this shows leaders of the community of jesus were in fact corporate directors for the college described as honored advisors and in the 1989 college yearbook then headmaster charles farnsworth states that without the community of jesus the grenville school would not exist today finally there's this letter obtained by the fifth estate written to the anglican bishop in 2001 by a grenville college administrator the community of jesus saved us from closing up in the early 70s from that time on they played a very major role in the lives of the leaders of our community and therefore a major role in how many things were done up here i know you have a take i happen to think it's grotesquely unfair and that it's hugely sloppy boston attorney jeffrey robbins represents the community of jesus he's adamant his clients have had no part in the systemic abuse the court in canada found you've spoken to people who who have been around and who say that grenville grenville took its direction from these two women who traveled up to uh canada in a winnebago that seems hugely unlikely but it's worse than that because what you accuse them of is that you accuse these two women and because they they believe in christian fellowship or whatever that somehow acts over the course of a half century of insulting people we're at the direction of the communion of jesus it's preposterous and frankly it should be offensive to anybody who cares about fundamental fairness but what about the experiences described by carrie and ruth buddington between them they spent 60 plus years at the community of jesus okay i i actually know about the community of jesus oh okay so are we now saying uh that because it was that carrie buddington or ruth buddington had a bad time at the community of jesus that uh there were people who were abused in grenville and that occurred because of the community jesus surely you're not saying that no i think the experiences carrie and ruth had at the community of jesus tell you a lot about the community of jesus we're trying to develop a picture of what the community of jesus you're trying to indict the community of jesus we're trying to establish what their various principles have been and what practices they've used awfully nice and how and and how it affected real people you're awful you're an awfully nice guy but not for a minute are you trying to explore this you came down here trying to indict the community and you will i know it of course you will but in 2020 the canadian judge in the class action lawsuit offered her own unequivocal indictment she calls the separation of the two entities a false distinction there was ample evidence from former staff and students to confirm that the community of jesus existed to run a school the community was the physical and spiritual home to the school its values practices hierarchy and beliefs were applied to the operations of the school the two were interwoven but while the canadian case exposed much of what went on behind these stone walls some secrets have stayed buried until now i also remember during the night that charles farnsworth came into the room and i just remember like he had such a distinctive voice honored guests teachers parents fellow students and graduates [Music] looking at the graduating class of 1997 i see some of the same faces i first met in preschool michael phelan was practically born at grenville christian college where his parents were teachers he was a student there until graduation in 1997 when he gave this commencement address let us never lose sight of all that we have learned at grenville for it is the key to our future thank you [Music] that was quite a speech [Music] wow a lot of the speech to be totally honest i i see as a product of a lot of brainwashing to be totally honest years and years and years of brainwashing as a young boy it's how he learned about headmaster charles farnsworth's approach to sex education and sexual abuse in that office he gave a graphic description to all of us maybe 15 of us in there of when he was sexually abused by a camp counselor when he was younger and he talked about that happening to him and then he said at the end of it if that happens to you then it's your fault that's your sin he says he tried to make the best of a bad situation such as when the school imposed a grueling pre-dawn workout routine i believe it was my grade nine year they told us that we were going to be put on a boot camp and that we were going to be assigned different staff members who were going to be our parents and the people that i was was assigned to was the menses gordon margaret remember gordon mintz is the teacher who had told mcleans he had never seen a more caring school now michael phelan saw another side of him i remember he had me get on the bike and i just remember him just yelling at me like harder harder harder and i just remember like i just was so exhausted and i was in so much pain and i was so nauseous from the exercise that i i went and vomited and it was violent it was violent vomiting and i remember him clearly saying to me the purpose of these sessions with me is to make you more of a man and that was a euphemism for what i was effeminate and that in retrospect they saw this as a a one-way road to me being gay and all they were trying to do everything they could to beat that out of me it seemed pretty clear as i talked to people that a lot of the behavior would constitute emotional abuse mike morales was a local brockville journalist who investigated grenville christian college in the 1980s it took him four months to finish a multi-part examination of the school which the brockville newspaper never published i think one of the concerns they had was about being sued being a family on paper and facing a big lawsuit i feel like there were probably opportunities where there were people from the outside community who maybe should have known something but in fact they did know in 1989 while researching his story mike morales alerted both the ontario provincial police and the anglican church to the grenville abuse allegations he says neither expressed any interest it's distressing news for grace irving who also has childhood memories she can't forget i had been sexually abused by charles farnsworth as a child you know as an elementary school age child [Music] what's more the fifth estate has learned a senior grenville staff member wrote a letter to the anglican church about what happened to grace she saw it for the first time when we showed it to her [Music] this is shocking why well i've never seen this before sent to the anglican bishop in ontario the letter revealed grace irving's description of being sexually abused by grenville head master charles farnsworth who was also an anglican priest [Music] [Laughter] they don't seem overly concerned about whether it might have been true and then that it was shared with the bishop um so many years ago indeed they seem most concerned about whether grace will make her allegations public what happens if this young lady goes to the police the administrator asked the bishop that will be devastating for charles farnsworth she says what if this opens the door to all the other accusations that have come our way that letter was sent to the anglican church in 2001 two decades ago in a statement to us the anglican diocese of ontario maintains that a court decision found it had no duty of care in the grenville case and found no evidence it had any direct involvement the church now admits it didn't go to the police despite the accusations against one of its priests because it felt the staffer who wrote the letter might not have believed it was true and never informed the bishop of the identity of the alleged victim in other words grace irving [Music] at that time michael phelan had a childhood secret too which he had kept closely guarded for two decades since he was eight years old there was a sleepover that was going to be held at charles farnsworth's house the headmasters the headmaster's house he's now publicly revealing that painful part of his life we stayed in an upper room um at that house i remember like white white carpet i think and in the night uh robert uh molested me and the other boy robert is robert farnsworth one of the sons of grenville's headmaster charles michael phelan says he was molested by both father and son and i also remember during the night [Music] that charles farnsworth came into the room [Music] and i just remember like he had such a distinctive voice and i remember that voice just saying michael michael over top of me and i i remember him fondling me as well allegations of sexual abuse by robert farnsworth go back to the mid-80s when he was a senior student at grenville christian college and then later at the community of jesus years after in 2016 robert was tried for sexual assault in relation to another accusation but found not guilty it was the older son donald who approached us when we filmed at the abandoned college last summer he spent much of his life at grenville as student teacher and school administrator he has not been accused of assault though he is named as a defendant on behalf of his father's estate in the class-action lawsuit we have spoken directly to a number of people have you as multiple people who say that happened to them here what happened to them specifically sexual abuse i don't know anything that's been corroborated by a witness or by anyone else i only know of individuals is that not the problem with sexual abuse that it's usually not witnessed it's usually done in secret or in private usually someone would come and tell someone else even though it might not be public it would have come out so how then do you explain the fact that over a thousand almost fifteen hundred students put their names on that lawsuit against spinvil christian they're not witnesses the people we have spoken to say that they don't expect to get any money that's not why they did it they did it so that they could right wrongs and have some form of justice which as as many of them as young children when they were here often stories like this start out with once upon a time you don't you don't believe in abuse in systematic abuse i believe that systematic abuse is terrible but i don't believe that happened here there was no one here that had any intention of harming any child but don farnsworth's adamant denial on the fifth estate would bring forward someone else when i saw him standing outside of this that school and defending or saying that these were stories i found it so disturbing and so repugnant and i'm just not someone in my life at this time who can stand by and see that without saying something the conclusion to our story when we come back we know that it is a privilege for us to carry on a mission that has existed here on this property since 1917. this is gordon mintz headmaster of grenville christian college when it closed in 2007. [Music] he was ordained as an anglican priest in 2001 just months after the church received that letter describing sexual abuse by the previous headmaster turned priest charles farnsworth gordon mintz was a long time teacher at granville so what did he know he was there through some pretty horrendous psychological physical abuse of children and there's no way he can say he didn't know what was going on rebecca sangster attended grenville for high school she followed the lawsuit closely including the day in court when gordon mintz testified against his former students in the class action lawsuit he uh he still defended the school he still defended the faith which to my mind means that he's still a member of the cult that lawsuit covers the period before mintz became headmaster but includes his time as a teacher there just over a decade in all in court he was never questioned about sexual abuse nor was he personally named in the lawsuit but as a witness he repeatedly denied what the judge concluded was systemic at his school emotional and physical abuse rebecca sangster is now a civilian employee of the canadian armed forces and that's when i saw that gordon mintz was a padre in the canadian military in 2019 she learned that not only was mints now a military chaplain but he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel in command of the canadian armed forces chaplain school somebody eventually said why don't you just email the brigade the major general chapter lane the head padre directly so that's what i did i sent him a letter saying this is who you are now promoting to the head mastership of the padres school it teaches all of the other padres you know are you aware of this and can you please look into this then as now the military was under pressure for its mishandling of sexual assault allegations sancster hoped her concerns would be taken seriously indeed the next day she received an apparently urgent reply from the chaplain general he wrote he had not been made aware of the issues the content is most concerning the forces will take this seriously an investigation has been initiated still two years would pass with no further word from the canadian forces while doing our first grenville story last year we caught up with lieutenant colonel mintz on his way into the chaplain school at camp borden ontario mr mintz hi i'm bob mckeown from the fifth estate at cbc news we'd like to ask you a few questions if that's all right we would like to ask you about uh i think i think you may have it uh we'd like to ask you about allegations of abuse at grenville school when you were a teacher there in in court and in interviews you've denied there was there was any abuse the judge found it was a systemic abuse physical mental emotional is there anything you'd like to say to the people like michael and rebecca to whom we've been talking finally in december 2021 a response to rebecca sangster it said that lieutenant colonel mintz is in the process of retiring no comment from gordon metz as for the ontario provincial police back in 2007 when abuse allegations at grenville made the news the opp launched an investigation but the same police force accused of ignoring warnings about abuse at the school two decades earlier once again declined to press charges the fact that the same branch of the police would be allowed to do an investigation is shocking absolutely shocking recent emails from the opp confirm they are continuing to actively review the allegations which the cbc brought to our attention in late 2021 but there is not a current active investigation [Music] accountability has been very hard to find no apology from the police or the anglican church nor the family or estate of former headmaster charles farnsworth either before or after he died in 2015. but our original school of secrets coverage online did get the attention of someone who says she's been owed accountability by the farnsworths since childhood we've altered her voice to help protect her identity i saw it one day on facebook and from people that i know people that i spent time with either growing up at the community of jesus or granville christian college who posted it talking about the strength of others who had come forward others like grace irving and michael phelan whose allegations of abuse by his father and brother donald farnsworth has likened to fairy tales often stories like this start out with once upon a time you don't you don't believe in abuse in systematic abuse i believe that systematic abuse is terrible but i don't believe that happened here there was no one here that had any intention of harming any child i know michael i know greece and i know you can't call them stories i refuse to call them stories but people say stories all too well i know the facts all too well from my own experience in particular she says she knows the pain of being raped at age six or seven by the younger farnsworth brother robert then she goes on to reveal that robert's father charles the headmaster attempted to molest her as well and she says it was all compounded by older brother donald's public denials [Music] he wasn't just a person in a position of authority at that school he wasn't just charles farnsworth's son charles farnsworth a man who also hurt me he was the brother or is the brother of a man who sexually assaulted me when i was little so a few days after our documentary aired she sent a private facebook message to donald farnsworth date november 15 2021 mr farnsworth your denial of abuse allegations at grenville and repeated denials of your brother robert sexually assaulting children is repugnant i have a witness to what happened to me so i do not need corroboration of any other kind your brother robert raped me while another little boy was in the same room with me he then sexually assaulted that other little boy [Music] who who was and is one of my dearest friends well your brother forced me to watch him hurt my friend your brother ruined my innocence then he did other things i do not have the stomach to right here what he did to six and seven-year-old children was beyond unspeakable she didn't expect a reply but donald farnsworth wrote back and seemed to accept her accusation that his brother is guilty of child rape he repeatedly has denied that his father has done anything wrong that the school did anything wrong and that his brother did anything wrong and then out of the blue he's writing me and saying essentially that he he knew i was shocked what's more farnsworth acknowledges he's had his own doubts about robert's innocence i thought otherwise for 30 years i have asked my brother on multiple occasions to admit guilt and pay consequences you are someone i would choose to believe over my brother and donald farnsworth addresses the allegation that their father charles molested children too as for my father i am concerned to hear about what you have spoken i had a restless night thinking of it and staying awake many hours because of it [Music] robert farnsworth is is still a free man are you concerned that children who may be in his sphere are in danger i'm certain they are and i'm terrified that's why i'm here today um i'm here today because i know that someone who sexually assaults little kids who rapes them who doesn't hesitate to take away their innocence at the age of six or seven or eight has a problem that they look at little kids that way and he will not stop i don't believe he will ever stop robert farnsworth never responded to our repeated requests for comment his older brother donald has long served as family spokesperson so what does she expect from him now donald farnsworth if he knows what's happened and he's admitted essentially that he has he should stand up he should go to the police he should do the right thing and let's [Music] let's get robert farnsworth off the street now this is how her facebook message to donald farnsworth concludes we all come to certain crossroads in life and have a decision to make rape versus wrong you have chosen evil god will judge you for your selfish choice to stand beside a monster these are things that one never forgets a few years ago police where she lives in the u.s asked her to testify against robert farnsworth she says she didn't have the strength but after watching school of secrets on the fifth estate now she's gone to the police getting her records together she says going back to the case that's taken so much from her and it appears from some many others [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The Fifth Estate

Views: 1,070,738

Keywords: Farnsworth, Grenville Christian College, Community of Jesus, abuse, abuse survivors, religious schools, private schools, Maitland, Ontario, Cape Cod, Mintz

Id: Tyki2qtaCFo

Length: 43min 28sec (2608 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 21 2022