Article Added On: April 29, 2008 - 18 days ago
Title: Law favours women, man alleged to have wed 10-year-old girl complains
Original URL: http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=56dfd6aa-3e1b-4e04-b423-fb309fc5b118
Author: SUE MONTGOMERY
Publication: The Gazette
Publication Date: April 26, 2008 - 21 days ago
Faith Groups: Other Christian
Themes: religion in the media

Abstract: Self-proclaimed clergyman of the defunct Church of Downtown Montreal who is accused of sexually touching a 9-year-old mused on the institution of marriage and the divorce industry during a six-hour interrogation by Montreal police.

A man accused of sexually touching a 9-year-old mused on the institution of marriage and the divorce industry during a six-hour interrogation by Montreal police.

When Daniel Cormier and his wife divorced - which wasn't his idea, he said - he realized the system favoured women, he says in a videotape of the questioning, played yesterday at his trial.

Cormier, 57, is charged with sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, sexual assault and two counts of sexual exploitation of two girls. Neither victim's name can be published.

"Madame will stay in the castle and monsieur will be on the street with the homeless," he says in the tape, spouting statistics he claimed to have learned about divorce. "When you see homeless men on the street, how many are there because of women?" And if your wife is going through menopause, watch out - she'll take the house, the children, everything, he said.

The detective interviewing him was leading up to details of Cormier's alleged "marriage" to a 10-year-old girl. Cormier, a self-proclaimed clergyman of the defunct Church of Downtown Montreal, is alleged to have begun touching his so-called "wife" sexually when she was 9.

Cormier is acting as his own counsel. The court has heard that he befriended a woman, with two young daughters, who was having difficulties making ends meet. The woman had got involved in prostitution and drugs and her children had been placed in foster care.

Cormier helped her get the girls back, got the woman off drugs, helped pay her bills and cared for her daughters. Then he is alleged to have sexually abused and married one of them.

The mother claims she trusted Cormier because he was like a father figure to her family.

In the tape shown in court yesterday, Cormier never got around to talking about the child bride.

The trial continues Monday.