The decision noted that Sullivan appeared before Canada’s Parole Board as a first-time federal offender who “emotionally took responsibility for the crime” and “clarified the scope” of his historical crimes.
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Victims of convicted sex offender Donald Joseph Sullivan are outraged after the former Scout leader and Canadian Forces officer was awarded a day’s probation after serving less than half of his six-year prison sentence for sexual offenses against at least ten children.
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Sullivan, now 71, was denied full parole on July 22, but was granted six months’ probation in a community residential facility, according to the Canada Parole Board’s release order.
Sullivan was sentenced in September 2019 to five concurrent sentences for acts of gross indecency committed against young boys during his time as a volunteer Scout leader in the 1970s. He was sentenced to an additional one year for a sexual assault he committed in the 1990s.
Between the date of his sentencing and his release in July, Sullivan served approximately two years and 10 months in prison for those crimes.
“Is this justice?” one of her victims wrote in an email interview after Sullivan was granted a day of probation.
“In five months you can apply for full parole. In the meantime, his victims continue to serve life sentences,” the victim wrote. “She got away with it easily compared to the rest of us who continue to seek counseling or substance abuse treatment.”
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Sullivan’s 2019 criminal trial heard testimony from numerous victims who told the court about the “twisted harm” Sullivan inflicted on them.
A judge almost burst into tears reading some of the victim impact statements at the end of the trial, in which Crown prosecutors had asked for a 10-year prison sentence.
Ottawa police began investigating Sullivan’s historical sex crimes in June 2018 after victims filed reports of abuse from his time as a volunteer Scout leader from 1972 to 1975.
Scouts Canada fired Sullivan in 1977 when police officers began visiting the families of the boys under their watch, informing them of allegations of child sexual abuse. He was not charged with any crime at the time.
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The Parole Board noted in its decision that Sullivan admitted to leaving a trail of more victims that did not result in criminal charges.
Sullivan was court-martialed in the 1980s after pleading guilty to gross indecency while serving at the Canadian Forces base in Gagetown, NB, where he rose to the rank of corporal.
He met and groomed his victims, most of them the children of fellow Canadian Forces members, as an “altar boy instructor” at the base chapel and as a youth counselor in the neighboring town of Gagetown, according to court-martial records. .
Sullivan pleaded guilty to five counts of gross indecency but, according to those records, he successfully appealed his four-year sentence and was pardoned and released in 1986 after serving one year.
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It would be almost 20 years before Sullivan was caught sexually abusing a boy in 2005.
He admitted to a psychiatrist in 2018 that he sexually abused as many as 30 boys between the ages of eight and 12 between 1975 and 2005, beginning when Sullivan was a 24-year-old Scout leader to the time he was first criminally charged. at age 55
He served nine months in a provincial jail in 2005 for that assault on a minor after he was convicted of two counts of sexual interference and solicitation of sexual touching.
Sullivan received treatment at the Royal Ottawa Hospital for eight years after his release in 2005, with “group cognitive behavioral therapy” and medication to reduce his sexual interests.
A psychiatric evaluation completed in January estimated Sullivan’s risk of reoffending “in the low-moderate range for future sexual offenses,” according to the Parole Board’s decision.
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You are prohibited from being in the presence of children under the age of 16 unless approved in writing by your parole supervisor and accompanied by an adult who has full knowledge of Sullivan’s criminal record.
His crimes involved “inappropriate activities with children (where Sullivan was) in a position of trust,” the board stated, and Sullivan “recognized an inappropriate attraction to children and was diagnosed accordingly.”
The board noted the “considerable long-term harm he has caused to the victims of his crime.”
The decision noted that Sullivan appeared before the board as a first-time federal offender who “emotionally took responsibility for the crime” and “clarified the scope” of his historical crimes.
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“At no time did he minimize liability or harm caused,” the board’s decision noted. “You take responsibility for your crimes, disclosed the presence of additional victims, and gave no indication of downplaying.”
Sullivan was ordered to have no contact with his victims or their families as his crimes have “caused them significant emotional trauma and psychological damage and left them all struggling…
“He has offended and harmed a significant number of young victims and they continue to struggle with the long-term impact of their actions,” the board stated in its decision.
Sullivan’s behavior was “without problem or concern” during his 34-month stay in a federal penitentiary, according to the board’s decision.
He made “positive developments” in prison programming, according to his facilitator, and the board said Sullivan appears “steadfast in (his) desire to continue treatment and prescribed medication.”
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