WARNING: This article contains graphic content and may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
An alleged child sex predator arrested earlier this year — in a case that confounded police in southern Ontario for decades — is now facing a civil lawsuit over an assault reported 30 years ago.
Court documents reviewed by CBC News show Richard Neil is being sued for $1 million in damages by one of his alleged victims. The plaintiff was 10 years old when he told police he was forced to perform sex acts on a stranger in the Norton Place Park in Brampton, Ont., on Sept. 29, 1994.
Neil, 65, was arrested in Toronto in March in connection with that attack and two other sexual assaults on a boy in Kitchener and a girl in Oakville in the 1990s, after a long-running, on-again, off-again investigation.
In 1995, police from the Peel, Halton and Waterloo regions formed a task force to probe the string of unsolved attacks after investigators said DNA evidence had linked the cases. All three had occurred in wooded areas, which led media outlets at the time to dub the unidentified assailant as the “woodland rapist.”
This past March, Peel Regional Police laid 20 charges against Neil, including kidnapping, sexual assault with a weapon and making child pornography. He maintains his innocence.
In the civil suit filed in Barrie Superior Court in late May, the complainant recounts being “brutally sexually assaulted over the course of several hours” before the attacker stole his clothes. The 10-year-old had to run to a nearby house to get help.
The plaintiff, who is now 40, cannot be named due to a court-ordered publication ban in the criminal case.
Neil’s criminal defence lawyer previously told CBC News his client was “shocked” to learn of the allegations earlier this year. “He is not guilty,” Leo Adler said, “and certainly the presumption of innocence applies.”
In the civil case, Neil is represented by lawyer Kathryn Manning. She declined to comment. Neil has not filed a statement of defence.
Decades of trauma and distress
According to a statement of claim, the plaintiff has suffered “severe physical and psychological injuries” in the three decades since the assault, including “trauma, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life.”
He did not finish high school and has struggled to keep a job, which he attributes to the lasting impacts of the attack, it says.
Investigators said earlier this year they suspect there may be more victims. After Neil’s arrest, police released two pictures of the accused: a recent photo and one from 1996. They said Neil had recently been living in B.C.
A man who was attacked in a Brampton, Ont., park 30 years ago is speaking out for the first time, telling CBC News that police told him they identified the alleged ‘woodland rapist’ after a relative of the suspect submitted DNA to an ancestry-type website.
Neil was granted bail in April, subject to conditions including that he live with family on Vancouver Island or in Toronto and that he wear an electronic monitoring device. He was also barred from playgrounds, daycares and public parks and pools.
Police have declined to say publicly what evidence led them to Neil — the first person arrested in the decades-old case.
In the mid-1990s, officers canvassed neighbourhoods and reportedly looked at more than 1,000 persons of interest. A composite sketch of a man was distributed to law enforcement agencies across the province and nearby U.S. states.
But the plaintiff previously said it was ultimately the DNA of a family member of the accused that contributed to the arrest this past March. The man said he was told by a detective that a relative of Neil’s had submitted their DNA to an ancestry-type website.
A former investigator on the case provided the same account.
The plaintiff said he doesn’t expect the civil case will move forward before the criminal matter is resolved.
The criminal case is scheduled to return to the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton on Oct. 21.
For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.