“Acts of some criminality”? Hundreds of sexual assaults already admitted to by Graham were “acts of some criminality”? The sexual assaults were far more than that. Plus, they had all required planning, preparation, and a grooming of the victims. Everything he did back then was indeed “sinister.” And yes, there was always music playing in the background as he tried to muffle the sounds of his actions.
Graham’s lawyer attempted to present Graham as a man who had done much for the betterment of the game of hockey. Listening to him reminded me of the man I had first seen, the Graham who had done so much to achieve significant status in the Winnipeg hockey community.
Graham’s lawyer noted that Graham had been a leading advocate against bullying and hazing in hockey. Great, except he left out that Graham was, at the same, doing things behind closed doors to young hockey players that made hazing rituals look trifling.
His lawyer touted all the steps Graham had taken to campaign against violence in hockey. Yet he conveniently left out that Graham had a previous conviction for assault, committed with a hockey stick. And he also left out that Graham had used a firearm to scare young victims into complying. I do not disagree that hockey can have a problem with violence, but I’ve never seen anybody bring a gun to a hockey fight.
Graham’s lawyer noted that Graham crusaded against alcohol and tobacco use, and that Graham had his junior teams refuse sponsorships from such companies. However, he failed to mention that one of Graham’s methods of securing compliance with his sexual wishes was to get us drunk, and he showed utter indifference when his victims got high or abused other substances.
Graham worked hard to make sure that people saw him as a progressive role model, but his private reality was dramatically different. Advocating against bullying and hazing, campaigning against violence in hockey, crusading against alcohol and tobacco use, his choices of causes to publicly champion were always diametrically opposed to the things he was actually doing or facilitating in his private life through his position in the hockey world. This was no coincidence. Those public causes gave him cover for his private deeds. Who would ever believe he was capable of doing the very things he stood against?
Astonishingly, Graham’s lawyer pointed to an incident in which four of his players tragically died in a bus crash as an example of some good that Graham did:
[On December 30, 1988] the Swift Current Broncos were in their first season as a franchise. He was managing and coaching and they had a bus accident. Four players were killed including a 16-year-old. The coverage was extensive and it was a complete and utter tragedy. But he remembered thinking what if he hadn’t banned beer from the bus and as pictures and photographers showed up there were cases of beer strewn about the crash site on the news? What if anybody suggested alcohol had been involved?
I am sure that the parents and loved ones of the deceased extend their heartfelt thanks to Graham James for having saved the Swift Current Broncos the potential embarrassment of alcohol having been involved in those deaths. I’m certain that the town of Swift Current credits Graham for its ability to retain its hockey franchise and thanks him for preventing any backlash that would have arisen had alcohol been seen at the scene of the accident.
Graham as hero of the tragic bus accident for having banned alcohol? That on its own is patently ridiculous and tells all you might ever need to know about Graham and how his mind operates, he being very much at the center of a Graham-centric universe. Yet, his lawyer left out an even more important point about the bus crash—that after the accident, Graham denied his players access to specialists who had been offered to the team to aid in their recovery from the deaths of their teammates. Graham said that the team would handle it internally, that it would strengthen the boys and the team. The real reason was most likely a very real fear that those of his players being abused might open up and tell the psychological experts about the sexual abuse they were suffering at his hands.
Graham’s lawyer tried to present Graham as a sympathetic, lonely man who, because of his homosexuality and resulting isolation in macho conservative hockey outposts, turned to young players because he had no other sexual outlet. Graham was indeed lonely, and I myself felt sympathy for him. But homosexuality and loneliness have nothing to do with the psychopathy of serial sexual abuse and issues relating to the need to exploit, control, and dominate. Nothing. It was an abomination that this was even mentioned in court.
His lawyer even presented Graham’s unwillingness to admit to his crimes unless his victims first came forward as a virtue. Supposedly, this showed that Graham was sympathetic to any pain a victim might suffer should Graham disclose any abuse that a victim might prefer to remain unknown. In this telling of the story, Graham had been doing his victims a favor by not admitting to all of his crimes up front, and this further reflected Graham’s rehabilitation, for he now thought of his victims first and himself second.
Except that Graham could have gone to the police at any time and given a complete statement of everything he had done, including a complete list of those he had abused, the number of times he had abused each, and the nature of the abuse of each. He, and at the very least his lawyer, would know full well that the prosecution rarely, if ever, moves forward absent cooperation from a victim, and that if a victim wished to remain anonymous and not move forward, nothing would ever come of it and the victim’s name would never be disclosed. But Graham could never do that, for if he is like most sexual predators, the list would in all likelihood be far longer than most people could ever imagine and he would never, ever again spend a day outside of jail.
For everything that Graham’s lawyer raised that seemingly made Graham worthy of the court’s sympathy, there was a response of equal or greater impact against him, one grounded in the reality of who Graham was and what he had been doing. But this was not a trial, and there was no detailed point-by-point rebuttal of the story told by his lawyer.
Graham was a fraud back when I knew him, he was a fraud when he was abusing the others, and his lawyer did nothing but try to perpetuate that fraudulent version of Graham.
Lawyers are paid to tell a story. That doesn’t mean anybody has to believe it.
“GET OVER HERE, he’s coming!”
The staff inside the courtroom understood what was at stake. I had made clear to various security officers in the courtroom that I wanted a chance to look him in the eye so that I could put all of my years of suffering back onto him while showing him that he hadn’t crushed me.
“The piece of shit will be coming down this hallway in a couple of minutes. Be ready!”
Graham had left the courtroom during a break in the proceedings and was now being brought in from the back of the room down a hallway next to the viewing gallery, separated only by a small divider. Knowing that I had wanted to look him in the eye, one of the bailiffs motioned for me to come over to where I could do so. My heart was pounding. The moment I had been waiting for.
And then there he was, coming down the hallway, surrounded by security on each side.
I was ready. I had been repeating to myself over and over:
I’m now a fully grown man. I am ready for this. He can’t hurt me anymore. Here is my moment. I have waited a lifetime for this. Do it.
I looked at Graham and immediately recoiled. It took only a glimpse of the front of him coming toward me, his eyes locked to the floor, for me to quickly turn away. I panicked. I couldn’t look at him. I was terrified. I couldn’t breathe.
I felt humiliated and wanted to run away. I sank back into myself, as if I were sixteen years old again and in the middle of the abuse. It felt exactly like it did back all those years ago when he was sexually abusing me.
I had thought I was ready. I wasn’t. All these years later he still had so much power over me.
In his presence I was nothing but the same fearful, sexually abused teenager I had once been, who I had been ever since.
NEAR THE END of the proceedings that day, Todd Holt, who had en
dured hundreds of sexual assaults over a five-year period, delivered a powerful victim impact statement. Fighting to hold back tears, he talked about how he had lost his innocence, his sense of trust, his soul, his motivation. He talked about having drowned his pain in alcohol and how that had impacted his marriage. Todd was the most fragile of us all that day for the simple reason that he was just that day going public with his story. The strength and poise he showed was unimaginable. His words cut me. I couldn’t hold back my own tears.
As noted, Theo Fleury’s impact statement had been filed with the court. Theo read it at a media conference held far away from the proceedings, to show how far he had come and how far he had moved on. I loved the powerful image of being far away from Graham, far away from the charade playing out in the courtroom.
Graham was then given an opportunity to speak. He stood up slowly, head down, and read a prepared statement, never turning back to look at any of us. It was really quite something. He apologized to his friends, to the Canadian hockey public, to the institution of hockey, and to “the many good people who work only for the betterment of sport and those under their care.” He apologized to everyone in the communities where he had coached and to those involved in his teams and league. He apologized to people who were inconvenienced by having been asked questions as a result of his actions. He apologized to his players and their parents, and then finally to Todd and Theo.
Graham likes to quote Shakespeare. His apology was a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
And yet, it left me feeling empty. I never got the apology, however meaningless, that the others did.
Sitting there all those years later, I actually still craved Graham’s attention, his respect.
JUSTICE CARLSON ENDED the day by saying that she was reserving judgment and that we would reconvene just less than a month later, on March 20, 2012, for the reading of her verdict. It was a cliffhanger of sorts, everybody leaving the courtroom wondering what would happen next. But the lawyer in me knew, for ours is a system with much to learn about child sexual predators and the impact the crime has on its victims.
When the court reconvened in Winnipeg, in the Law Courts Building, in the very same courtroom where we had been just weeks earlier, everything was the same as we’d left it. Everything, that is, except for one person in the room who was acting in a most different manner.
When we entered the courtroom this time, Graham was not seated and he was not looking at the floor. The previous month, when he’d been looking for sympathy, he had been hiding and had presented himself as meek, harmless, remorseful. Now, knowing the judgment was written and there was nothing more he could do to influence what it might be, he was standing up with his hands on his hips, stretching, moving about, speaking with counsel. He was strutting as much as man in his position could strut.
“All rise for the Honorable Justice Catherine Carlson.”
And with that she began to read her decision.
There is no sentence this court can impose that will give back to Mr. Holt and Mr. Fleury that which was taken from them by Mr. James. The court expects that there is no sentence it can impose that the victims, and indeed many members of the public, will find satisfactory. But the court is confident that the victims of Mr. James’ offences, and the public, appreciate that what is a fit and appropriate sentence for Mr. James for these offences, must be determined based on the application of sentencing principles that have been set out by Parliament in the Criminal Code.
And with that, you knew instantly where this was going.
That paragraph is perfect. Nobody, absolutely nobody, could ever disagree with a single word of it. But decoded from legal-speak, it is an aggressive statement, effectively saying: “Disagree with this if you will, but this is an appropriate and rational sentence based on solid intellectual arguments. If you disagree, you would only be advocating for a sentence based on vengeance resulting from a visceral reaction to circumstances that make you too emotional to see things properly.”
It was first-year criminal law all over again. Once again, permit me to disagree with the lesson presented in that class. Objections to insufficient sentencing can be based on concepts of appropriate retribution, not just vengeance.
THE JUDGMENT REGURGITATED much of the information submitted by Graham’s lawyer detailing his contributions to hockey. Judge Carlson paid particular attention to Graham’s rehabilitation and credited him for the sincerity and dedication he had brought to his counseling sessions while he had first been imprisoned, all thirty-two sessions, noting that he had deferred early parole to complete his program.
Thirty-two counseling sessions. If only I could recover that quickly.
I was sitting in the gallery in bemusement, having expected this all along but still in shock at the reality of how the words sounded. I wanted to yell out from my seat:
You just don’t get it. You’re being conned by the ultimate con artist, a man whose life has been dedicated to fooling all of us. For his entire life he has taken advantage of the weak while making himself appear as the victim. Rehabilitated? Contrite? Aware of the damage he has done? Accepting responsibility for all that he has done? Dedicating himself to therapy? Apologizing? You’ve been had! I have looked deep into his eyes, the cold, dead eyes of a shark stalking its prey, and I have seen who he is and I know in my heart exactly what he is. Those who agree with this have all been fooled. Our system is ensuring that this monster will soon be back among us—again.
I had had over thirty years to prepare for this. But when Justice Carlson was handing down the sentence—a sentence that related to several hundred individual acts of sexual violence, sexual aggression, sexual exploitation, sexual whatever you want to call it—it was too much for me. How could she even begin to understand a man like Graham? She couldn’t, for if she could, she never would have been able to utter a single good word in court about him. Yet here in court I was hearing about the goodness in Graham. What else can be said other than that our legal system simply does not understand repeated and systematic serial child sexual assault?
Not only was Graham about to get an inadequate sentence, it would be reduced even further, for Justice Carlson was pointing to a provision of the Criminal Code that worked in Graham’s favor:
Mr. James has experienced an extreme degree of public humiliation. Indeed Mr. James’ career and reputation have been ruined. He is, of course, the author of his own misfortune. But, while publicity and stigma are ordinary incidents of the criminal justice system, and are not always cause for mitigation of sentence, the fact that the intense media scrutiny of Mr. James has lasted for such a prolonged period of time, and has been relentless, is a factor to consider. Public humiliation, beyond what is ordinarily incidental, may be considered in mitigation and may provide a degree of denunciation and deterrence. In this case, some mitigation is warranted.
That’s right. The public outcry against Graham for his crimes could be considered to be part of his punishment, meaning that the judge could properly reduce his jail sentence as a result of the pain he had already suffered.
Judge Carlson then analyzed Canadian precedents and the history of sentencing for child sexual assault generally. She noted that a case referred to as the Stuckless case, another high-profile case of child sexual assault inextricably linked to hockey, appeared to be most relevant. Gordon Stuckless had been an employee at Maple Leaf Gardens in the ’70s. He had used his position there to access and groom victims. Stuckless and others working behind the scenes as ushers or in equipment and maintenance had granted children access to one of hockey’s shrines, grooming them and then later sexually assaulting them. Judge Carlson used Stuckless to guide her in her sentencing.
What wasn’t mentioned in court is that Martin Kruze, a victim in the Stuckless case, jumped off the Bloor Viaduct in Toronto and killed himself on hearing his abuser’s ridiculously inadequate—even after it had been increased on appeal—sentence.
Stuckless had
originally been sentenced to two years, increased to six years on appeal, reduced by one year to five for credited time served. Remember those numbers.
OUR WORLD IS far smaller than we know.
The year before I met Graham, when I played Minor Bantam hockey in Winnipeg, our team hosted a team from Toronto during a spring tournament. One of the players from the Toronto team who stayed with me in our house, an amazing hockey player named Tim Cole, would later join me at Princeton. But something else from that weekend was even more of a coincidence.
We, the hosts, set up a road hockey game against our visitors. During the game, one of the guys from Toronto was going on about how we should come to Toronto because he and some friends were able to get into Maple Leaf Gardens and get used hockey sticks from the Leafs, and they were allowed to come in and watch practices. I didn’t think about that for years. But when news about Stuckless came out, I realized that was exactly what the pedophiles at Maple Leaf Gardens had done to attract their prey. I didn’t think anything more of it until I heard about Martin Kruze’s suicide. His picture was in the news, and the accompanying article mentioned that as a young boy he played for the Dorset Park Bruins. I stopped dead when I heard this. The team we had hosted all those years ago was the Dorset Park Bruins, but several years younger than his. Boys from the same area and same hockey association, talking about all the same things, all the same cool, amazing things about their hockey idols.
I don’t want anybody to commit suicide. But I understand Martin Kruze. If you’d been through what we’ve been through, you’d understand him too.
AFTER CONSIDERING EVERYTHING that had been presented by both the prosecution and the defense, Judge Carlson held as follows:
The court has determined that a sentence of two years’ imprisonment going forward, one each for the two offences, is appropriate. Giving recognition to the principle of totality, so as to avoid what would be a crushing sentence, the sentences for these offenses, which would, but for the principle of totality, otherwise be consecutive, will be concurrent to each other. The two-year sentence is a penitentiary sentence. It acknowledges the seriousness of Mr. James’ offences. It means sending back to jail someone who has not reoffended in the last fifteen years and has done all society has required of him during that time.
I Am Nobody Page 21
