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A proposed class action lawsuit accuses the B.C. government of negligence for allegedly allowing a provincial jail guard to sexually assault more than 200 young inmates over 21 years.

The civil claim filed Monday in B.C. Supreme Court opens a new front in a legal fight that stretches back decades.

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Hundreds of former inmates have previously accused retired jail guard Roderic David MacDougall of sexual abuse, in criminal court and in dozens of civil lawsuits. The new proposed class action claims allege the violation of the victims’ rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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Karim Ramji, the North Vancouver-based lawyer behind the new claim, has previously filed other lawsuits against MacDougall and the provincial government. Some of those cases are still proceeding through the courts slowly. One lawsuit, filed by Ramji in 2014 on behalf of two alleged victims, is set for trial this fall.

“That one case has taken 10 years — you can imagine all the other cases,” Ramji said Monday.

In 2019, Ramji filed a lawsuit on behalf of 61 men who had outstanding civil claims at that time. That lawsuit, which described MacDougall as “one of Canada’s most prolific sexual offenders, with more than 200 former inmates who have already come forward,” was a type of litigation known as a representative action. That action has effectively been on hold for years, and Ramji said it will now be discontinued so he can focus on the class action.

This new class action will provide “a more efficient format” for the matter to proceed on behalf of any victims whose claims have not yet been resolved or for any victims who may not have come forward previously, Ramji said: “This is about access to justice.”

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MacDougall worked as a corrections officer at four different B.C. jails between 1976 and 1997, with most of his time at Oakalla Prison in Burnaby. He was first criminally charged in 1998, the year after he quit his job.

Dozens of claims have been filed against MacDougall and the province since 2002 that have not been adjudicated upon by the courts or settled, the new claim says, and the proposed class action could include any of those unresolved claims as well as any other possible victims who never previously came forward.

The new pleading alleges breaches of the victims’ constitutionally protected Charter right to “life, liberty and the security of person,” as well as their right to not be subjected to “cruel and unusual punishment.” The victims’ Charter rights were violated not only by MacDougall’s sexual assaults, but also by the province for its “systemic negligence” allowing the abuse to occur over so many years, the claim alleges.

In the lawsuit Ramji filed in 2014, lawyers representing the Province of B.C. argued the plaintiffs should not be able to seek damages under the Charter, and the court agreed.

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The availability of Charter damages for these men is the “key issue” in this case, Ramji said: “Jails are not Charter-free zones.”

MacDougall is believed to be in his early 70s and living in the Lower Mainland. Reached by phone Monday, MacDougall said he was not aware of the newly filed class action and declined to discuss the allegations.

“You are not going to get me to comment,” MacDougall said.

MacDougall did not respond in court to many of the lawsuits filed against him over the years.

He did, however, maintain his innocence at a criminal trial in 2022, where he was convicted of sexual assault, indecent assault, and extortion in connection with five teenaged inmates in the 1980s.

The new class action will need to be approved by a Supreme Court judge before it can proceed.

With files from Lori Culbert

dfumano@postmedia.com

twitter.com/fumano

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