Manitoba man accused of historical child sexual assaults has criminal past involving young people
CBC
Warning:This story contains graphic content readers may find disturbing.
Court documents reveal a Lundar, Man., man recently charged with a series of historical sexual assaults involving children has been previously convicted of sexual offences involving young people.
Joseph Floyd Delaney, 65, was arrested in February in connection with nine offences, including sexual assault, sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching dating back to the 1980s and 1990s.
The charges involve three different children, all of whom were around 10 years old at the time of the alleged abuse.
Police said they were contacted in December by a survivor of sexual abuse, and two more accusers came forward after they began investigating.
Some, but not all, of the kids met Delaney through a church theatre group he ran, police added.
The theatre group was operated out of Grant Memorial Baptist Church on Wilkes Avenue, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.
In an email last week, executive church leadership said they had not been contacted by Winnipeg police and learned of the allegations and ties to the church through media reports.
"We cannot express how deeply grieved we are when we think of any harm done to the victims and their families," the statement read. "We pledge our full support and open cooperation in doing whatever we can to support any further investigation."
CBC News has learned that Delaney was previously convicted of three indecent acts in September 2000 involving three different victims in Winnipeg.
According to court documents, he pleaded guilty to an indecent act for "unlawfully and repeatedly for a sexual purpose" exposing himself to a boy under the age of 14 between January 1998 and March 2000.
Delaney pleaded guilty to a second indecent act for repeatedly exposing himself to a different boy under the age of 14, for a sexual purpose, between July and September 1999.
He was also convicted of an indecent act for exposing himself to another male victim in Winnipeg in the fall of 1999.
Delaney was sentenced to three months in jail followed by three years of supervised probation, which included a requirement he attend, participate and complete a sexual offender program as directed by probation services.