Diving Canada took years to respond to sex assault allegation: BC judge

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Canada’s premier diving organization took more than six years to respond to an allegation made by one of its divers that he had been sexually assaulted by a coach, says B.C. Supreme Court Justice Gareth Morley.

In March 2013, retired Indigenous diver Wegadesk Dana Gorup-Paule sent an email to the president of Diving Plongeon Canada alleging he had been sexually molested by former coach Trevor Palmatier at a diving competition in Quebec City in 2004 when he was 17.

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This email was forwarded to DPC Chief Operating Officer Penny Joyce, who then contacted the organization’s insurer.

However, neither Joyce or anyone else from DPC reached out to Gorup-Paule or responded in any way.

“He was ghosted,” Morley wrote.

In November 2015, Gorup-Paule reached out directly to Joyce and was ignored. He emailed the organization again in February 2016 but it was not until October 2019 that Joyce responded to Gorup-Paule to say they were open to paying compensation.

Palmatier was found guilty of historic sexual assault against a young male diver in 2016 and has not defended himself against Gorup-Paule’s claims. The DPC has never challenged that the abuse happened.

“I find DPC’s lack of any response to Mr. Gorup-Paule for over six years after he provided them with a credible allegation of sexual abuse by a prominent coach to be shockingly callous,” Morley wrote.

“Elite sport is analogous to a tight-knit religious community in the level of commitment it expects from its participants and the extent to which it becomes the individual’s social network. By reacting to Mr. Gorup-Paule’s allegations by refusing to communicate with him, DPC exacerbated the damage.”

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In 2021, Gorup-Paule agreed to a $600,000 compensation package. However, he has asked for that package to be renegotiated because he says he was under duress at the time he signed. The defendants in the new action asked that Gorup-Paule be declared a vexatious litigant. Those defendants include Palmatier, DPC, B.C. Diving, Pacific Coast Diving and Aviva Insurance Canada.

“(Gorup-Paule) says he was in poverty when he agreed to settle the previous action as a direct result of the abuse he suffered and that he signed the settlement agreement against [his] genuine will. He says the failure of the diving defendants to respond to him for years after the abuse was uncovered added to what he calls his burdens and he says that he was in an economically and psychologically vulnerable state,” Morley wrote. 

Gorup-Paule started diving in 1997 at age 10 and by 2000 was touted as a potential future Olympic competitor.

In October 2004, he won bronze in the 10-metre platform at the World Junior Championships and was put forward by DPC as a role model for Indigenous youth and a potential star.

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Despite his long-proclaimed goal of competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Gorup-Paule ended his diving career in 2007.

He says this was a direct result of alleged abuse by Palmatier, which he says drove him into substance abuse, culminating in a drunk driving accident shortly before the trials for the 2008 Olympics.

Palmatier was a diving coach in Victoria from 1997 to 2007, after which he moved to Edmonton, where he continued to coach until he was arrested in 2013 and later charged with sex crimes related to a young person in Victoria between 2004 and 2006.

He was found guilty in 2015, at which point he was expelled from DPC. In 2016, he was given a conditional sentence and did not serve time in jail.

Morley rejected both Gorup-Paule’s request to renegotiate the settlement and the defendants’ request that Gorup-Paule be declared a vexatious litigant.

“Mr. Gorup-Paule is charismatic and sincere,” Morley wrote.

“He clearly has found some meaning in struggling on behalf of youth and former youth who have experienced or are at risk of experiencing sexual abuse in sport. This is a good cause. Nothing I have said today means he cannot pursue that cause effectively and responsibly. But a civil action for the injuries Mr. Palmatier has done to him is something he has already freely settled, and so he must find some other path.”

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Palmatier has never been charged with sexual offences related to Gorup-Paule.

dcarrigg@postmedia.com

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