An Anglican priest awaiting trial for multiple sexual abuse charges died Nov. 7.
The Rev. Gordon William Dominey, a priest in the diocese of New Westminster, was alleged to have committed sexual abuses against boys who were inmates at the Edmonton correctional facility where Dominey worked as a prison chaplain in the 1980s. He was charged with 18 sexual assault charges and nine gross indecency charges.
According to the CBC, the Dominey’s two trials, originally scheduled to take place in 2020, were to be adjourned because he was too ill to travel.
Defense lawyer Kent Teskey told the CBC that Dominey was diagnosed with cancer in 2017 and had been undergoing chemotherapy since that time.
A lawsuit has been filed in Court of Queen’s Bench that also names the province of Alberta and the diocese of Edmonton. The group behind the suit is seeking to have the case certified as a class-action lawsuit.
Dominey worked at the Edmonton Youth Development Centre, a youth jail, from 1985-1989.
In 1990, he transferred to the diocese of New Westminster, where he worked as a parish priest. He served as priest-in-charge at St. Catherine’s Anglican Church in North Vancouver until his 2016 arrest.
According to Douglas Fenton, executive archdeacon of the diocese of New Westminster, Dominey was placed on administrative leave when the charges were laid in 2016, in accordance with the General Synod canon on discipline. “During that period [Dominey] did not have the Archbishop’s permission to function in an ordained capacity,” Fenton said. “He was still on administrative leave at the time of his death.”
