The Presbytery of Kingston has rebuked and suspended a retired minister from all ministerial and pastoral activity based on allegations that he sexually abused his daughter when she was a child.
Anne Vautour, now 49, complained to presbytery in May 2009 that her father, Rev. Bruce Cossar, repeatedly assaulted her for about 14 years from the age of two. That complaint generated an investigation by a committee under the church’s Sexual Abuse and Harassment Policy.
After 18 months, the committee presented its findings to an in camera meeting of presbytery and recommended that “on the balance of probabilities, the complaint by Anne Vautour that she was sexually abused as a child by her father, Bruce Cossar, be substantiated.”
The committee also recommended “the presbytery proceed to discipline and depose Bruce Cossar from the ministry.” Presbytery voted—by a majority of one vote—to substantiate the complaint but declined to depose Cossar. The public extract from the minutes said presbytery “rebukes the behaviour of Bruce Cossar and suspends him from all ministerial and pastoral activity.”
Rev. Mark Tremblay, presbytery clerk and advisor to the committee, said he guessed “suspension was chosen because Mr. Cossar is now retired [and] the events happened long before Mr. Cossar began studying for the ministry.”
“There was no evidence of issues raised throughout or about his ministry,” he said. Despite the decision, Cossar maintains his innocence. “I have no fear of judgment day,” he told the Record. “We all will be held accountable for something, but for me, this will not be on the list because it never happened.”
When asked why someone would persist in such claims if they weren’t true, Cossar was at a loss. “Apart from the fact that she thoroughly believes it happened, I can’t understand why. We don’t understand it.”
Cossar’s wife, Audrie, declined to comment to the Record. However, she is quoted in the committee’s confidential report to presbytery as telling the church investigative team: “If [Anne] had made the charges against anyone outside of our family, I would have believed her.” Cossar was not ordained a minister until 1985, after the time the abuse is said to have occurred, although he became an elder during the period in question in 1969.
Cossar waived his right to a church trial. In an interview he said: “I didn’t agree, but I didn’t appeal. I didn’t see any point to it.” Cossar retired in 2005 from Knox, Westport, Ont.
“I guess we’re just trying to put it behind us,” he said. In an interview, Vautour said she is satisfied with the verdict, even though she was hoping her father would be deposed. According to the church’s investigation, Vautour’s memories of the abuse first surfaced about 20 years ago when she was working with children in her job. Shortly after, she raised the issue in a letter to her parents in January 1992.
They responded by letter in March denying the allegations. Talk of the abuse then “disappeared,” according to Cossar, and the family thought the allegations had been laid to rest.
But the following year, Vautour filed for compensation with the Ontario Criminal Injuries Compensation Board. The board’s confidential report states: “The board has given very careful consideration to all the evidence and
finds, on a balance of probabilities that the applicant was [sexually assaulted]…”
It did not seek any evidence from Vautour’s father, who was unaware of the finding until recently. It was not until May 2009 that Vautour complained to the church. In a letter to the Presbytery of Kingston, she sought church discipline against her father for the assaults.
She told the Record the desire to do something about the abuse was triggered when she saw her father hugging his granddaughter during a family event, saying: “it troubled me.”
As required by the church’s sexual abuse policy, presbytery launched a committee to investigate Vautour’s claim. The committee began its work in June 2009, interviewing Bruce and Audrie Cossar, Anne Vautour and her siblings, as well as other friends and family.
After 14 meetings and long deliberations, the committee accepted Vautour’s claim, citing Cossar’s lack of empathy, discrepancies between his and his wife’s stories and the delay in the Cossars responding to Anne’s first allegations.
The committee also noted as reasons for their decision Cossar’s failure to remember certain major family events, the decision of the compensation board, and Vautour’s current emotional symptoms, which are consistent with women who were abused as children.
Vautour left the family home when she was 17 years old to go to college. She has since suffered extended periods of mental and emotional deterioration. She has spent years in therapy with several Christian therapists. It was while she was working with children, and through later therapy, that memories of the abuse began to surface.
She still goes to church, not Presbyterian, and while she didn’t totally lose faith over the years, she “certainly struggled with God and how He fit in to all of this.”
She has come to the conclusion, “that God puts us on earth and stuff happens, and He gives us the resources to deal with it. But He doesn’t necessarily intervene.”
