B.C. pays $35 million to settle lawsuit by prisoners sexually assaulted by guard

The B.C. government has agreed to pay $35 million to settle a class-action lawsuit on behalf of more than 100 prisoners who alleged they were sexually assaulted in their youth by a B.C. jail guard.

The province in the settlement agreement, recently approved by a B.C. Supreme Court judge, also agreed to have B.C. Corrections appoint an advisory board within three months.

The board will review and improve procedures for reporting and investigating sexual assault in B.C.’s provincial jails and provide help for victims, including medical aid, counselling or a transfer.

Class-action members are being invited to join the board, which will have spots for up to three inmates, according to the agreement.

The 2024 lawsuit alleged negligence by B.C. Corrections for ignoring reports to management by other guards of the assaults by guard Roderic MacDougall that happened over 21 years.

They ended in 1997, when MacDougall retired.

MacDougall, who worked mostly at the Oakalla jail in Burnaby but also at three other provincial jails, served a sentence after being convicted in 2000 of sexual assault in the 1980s against five prisoners, all 17 or 18 years old.

MacDougall, who was named as a defendant in the class-action lawsuit but didn’t respond or participate, has also faced, along with the province, more than 200 lawsuits seeking damages from individuals who didn’t join the class-action.

The settlement provides compensation for those victims who didn’t opt out, estimated in the agreement to be 105 men.

Prisoners who were in any of the four jails where MacDougall worked between 1976 and 1997 are entitled to a payment of $30,000 without submitting a sworn statement or describing the abuse, according to the agreement.

Compensation of up to $314,000 is available for those submitting sworn statements describing the abuse and harms caused, according to the agreement.

The $35 million settlement also includes the law firm’s fees, which the agreement says is up to 30 per cent, standard for class-action lawsuits.

The agreement also said a victim’s support group for class members will be set up with $25,000 withheld from the lawyer’s fees.

The 2024 lawsuit alleged MacDougall touched the inmates’ genitals and forced oral sex on them, forced them to touch his genitals and perform oral sex on him, and forced anal sex on them.

In responses to the lawsuits, many which have been completed, the province denied MacDougall assaulted anyone, but said that if a judge found otherwise, it admitted indirect liability while maintaining it had no direct knowledge of the alleged crimes.

MacDougall, now in his 70s, has filed very few responses to the lawsuits, but in at least one he denied any wrongdoing. An he maintained his innocence at his criminal trial.

While sentencing MacDougall at that trial, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mary Ellen Boyd found his victims “were all vulnerable boys.”

She said he had “extensive power” over parole applications and prison transfers and he either offered those in exchange for sexual favours or threatened to make his victims’ lives difficult in jail if they resisted the assaults.

Sentences of up to two years are served in jails, usually for lower-level property crimes, minor assaults, parole breaches or regulatory or statutory offences.

Time for more serious crimes, such as sexual or aggravated assault, manslaughter and murder that require sentences of more than two years, is served in federal prisons.

With files from Postmedia News