Every time a 13-year-old girl asked for help in math class, her teacher, Rick Despatie, couldn’t keep his hands off her, the girl testified Wednesday at the former teacher’s sex-crimes trial.
He touched her shoulders, arms and rubbed her thighs up her St. Matthew Catholic High School uniform skirt, right up to her underwear, she told court.
Despatie, a longtime teacher and celebrated basketball coach, is on trial for 14 charges of sex crimes involving four girls.
The teen said Despatie gave her “private detentions” for not doing her homework. She said he held them in his classroom in the morning before school and at lunch. Sometimes, the girl was alone and went to “private detentions” only to be molested again by Despatie, she claimed.
She said she was mostly molested in his math class, with the teacher rubbing her thighs.
At the start of the year, she often asked the teacher for help in math class but she stopped by the end of the school year after being subjected to unwanted advances, she said.
“I was afraid of him because his actions made me uncomfortable,” the teen told court Wednesday.
She’s the latest ex-student to testify at the former Ottawa teacher’s trial. Earlier this week, court heard from another former student.
In a police interview shown in court, the other girl said she was also subjected to unwanted touching — from Despatie rubbing her thighs, to back rubs and even a creepy attempt at footsies in math class.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant Crown Attorneys Cecilia Bouzane and Stephen Albers.
Despatie, who recently changed his last name to Watkins, is on bail while on trial. He can’t contact the complainants and is banned from pools and parks or wherever children hang out.
He’s also banned from working with children, or even volunteering around them, according to his bail conditions.
Despatie, 58, no longer works at the Orléans high school.
When the sex-crime charges were publicized last year, the Catholic school board said: “No student in our care should be subjected to any type of harm, especially when attending their own school, where so many staff work hard to create a safe and caring environment.”
The school board and the Ontario College of Teachers said last year that they are each investigating how the complaints were handled and why Despatie was allowed to continue teaching.
Neither the board nor the college has announced the findings of their investigations.
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