Crown wants six years in prison for Graham James
WINNIPEG — The Crown outlined Wednesday how convicted pedophile and former junior hockey coach Graham James would groom his victims for the sexual abuse to come, then hold them in his sway by threatening to take away the hockey they so dearly loved.
Attorney Colleen McDuff, who argued James should spend six years in prison, told his sentencing hearing that his teenage players looked up to him because he was highly respected in the hockey world. They also believed — and were told by the coach — that he could make or break their careers.
Two of those players, Theo Fleury and his cousin Todd Holt, were teenagers hoping to make it big. Court heard both of their lives were almost destroyed as they struggled with their demons for years before coming forward to police with their accusations.
James was eventually arrested and faced a total of nine charges dating back between 1979 and 1994 and involving Fleury, Holt and Greg Gilhooly, who never played for James but who said he was also abused by him.
James pleaded guilty in December to sexually abusing Fleury and Holt, but the charges involving Gilhooly were stayed.
It was not the first time James was convicted. He pleaded guilty to sexual abuse against former NHLer Sheldon Kennedy in 1997, stunning the hockey world and shattering the picture many had of him. He served about 18 months of a 3 1/2 year-sentence before he got out of jail in 2000 and dropped out of public view.
His image had gone from revered to reviled.
McDuff told the sentencing hearing how James kept Fleury close to him in the early 1980s when Fleury played for the Winnipeg Warriors, a Western Hockey League team that moved to Moose Jaw, Sask., after the 1983-84 season.
Fleury, who would become an NHL star with the Calgary Flames, was boarding with a couple and referred to James as his guardian. The coach had persuaded Fleury’s parents to let him move to Winnipeg from Russell, Man., to play hockey and attend school.
McDuff said Fleury, who was only 14, had tremendous respect for James at first.
“James was effectively revered in the hockey world at that time,” she said at the hearing Wednesday. “It was recognized and understood he had a tremendous amount of power.”
“I was a boy with a big dream and the talent to match,” Fleury said in his victim impact statement.
“I played hockey in the early morning hours, after school, on the weekends and holidays. I even dreamed of hockey. Everyone in my life knew of my passion and my talent, including convicted pedophile Graham James.”
McDuff outlined the trips James took with Fleury and how he convinced the teenager to come to his apartment so James could tutor him. Staying the night became a requirement.
The bedroom windows were covered and lesser forms of sex assault — fondling and groping — eventually grew into more serious abuse as Fleury grew exhausted from fighting James off.
“This was predatory and thought-out behaviour,” McDuff said.
Fleury estimates he was assaulted about 150 times in total. He was told he could return home — with no prospects of a hockey career — or stick it out with James, who promised to get him into the National Hockey League.
“He would go to bed crying himself to sleep, questioning why ... is this happening?” said McDuff.
“I was just a kid. A child,” Fleury said in his statement. “I was completely under Graham James’s control. And I was scared. I did not have the emotional skills, the knowledge or the ability to stop the rapes or change my circumstances.
“I felt lost, alone, and helpless.”
McDuff said it was much the same with Holt, who endured hundreds assaults starting in 1989 and going until 1994.
Holt, who played with the WHL Swift Current Broncos, would eventually be offered money by James in exchange for sexual acts.
James told the young player he was lonely, gay and had no friends.
Holt remembers sitting in his car, looking at the money, and crying, McDuff said.
The encounters took on an edge as they increased to twice a week for five years. There were threats to send Holt home if he didn’t comply; the promise of gifts and a career if he did.
James told Holt he “held his hockey career in his hands.”
“Because of the power Mr. James held in the hockey community, Mr. Holt was fearful of what would happen to his hockey career if he did not comply,” said McDuff.
She asked Justice Catherine Carlson to take into account the effect James had on his victims and that he was in a position of trust.
She turned to a psychiatrist’s report that said James is “indifferent and remote, rarely responsive to the actions and feelings of others, and chooses solitary activities.”
McDuff also pointed out James went to Spain to continue coaching young adults after he got out of jail the first time.
“You would have expected he would have avoided these type of situations, and yet, he didn’t.”
Kennedy was in Winnipeg in part to show support for Gilhooly, another junior hockey prospect, who said this week it was important for his recovery to see James sentenced.
Fleury prompted the latest charges against James several years ago when he came forward. But the one-time hockey star was in Vancouver preparing to host the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards and was not in court to face his abuser.
He did, however, hold a news conference at which he read his victim impact statement. He also said he hoped the judge would make the right decision
“I would hope that the judge, after hearing all this, would take all the information, go back to ... chambers and make a logical, caring, loving decision ... but who knows if there’s been a deal cut already.”
Holt’s victim impact statement said his past with James affected his marriage and relationship with the rest of his family.
He said he is bombarded by nightmares to this day.
“All of this because of what happened to me in the care of Graham James,” said Holt, who cried as he read his statement.
“Graham James took away every part of me that my family had brought me up to be, and stole the son, brother and person that they loved.”
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