Ontario woman alleges high school running coach sexually assaulted her as a teen in $3M lawsuit

An Uxbridge, Ont., woman has launched a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against her former running coach and the Durham District School Board, alleging she was subjected to years of sexual assault and abuse at the hands of a teacher.

The teacher, Edward LaRocque, denies the allegations, and the school board, which is located about 65 kilometres east of Toronto, denies any liability connected to the allegations.

Now 25, Julia Kearley said she feels it's the right time for her to speak out.

"I'm at a place where I want accountability," she told CBC News. "I don't want to carry the shame anymore."

Kearley has thus far chosen not to go to police, so the matter has not been investigated and no criminal charges have been laid. None of the allegations in the lawsuit have been proven in court.

A statement of defence filed by LaRocque's lawyers denies the allegations and asks that the lawsuit be dismissed. Lawyer Andrew Max told CBC News in an email that the "matter is before the court and Mr. LaRocque will be responding to these allegations there."

Also at issue is a separate, third-party claim from the school board filed against the plaintiff's mother, which the board says was launched by its insurer without its knowledge. It alleges she is in part responsible for any abuse by failing to protect her daughter "in accordance with her parental/guardianship responsibility" — something Kearley's mother denies.

According to a statement of claim, Kearley first encountered LaRocque in 2011 when she started attending Uxbridge Secondary School in Grade 9. She was 14 at the time, while LaRocque, the coach of the school's cross-country and track and field teams, was in his late 30s.

Kearley joined the cross-country team later that year. The lawsuit alleges LaRocque soon started grooming her.

"From the start, LaRocque complimented Julia and told her how talented she was," the statement of claim reads. At LaRocque's suggestion, according to the lawsuit, Kearley also joined the Greater Uxbridge Road Runners club outside of school — which led to her having one-on-one practices with LaRocque and him driving her to practices and competitions.

The lawsuit alleges that over a period of months, LaRoque and Kearley spent an increasing amount of time together, and they texted back and forth. The lawsuit alleges the text messages initially related to running but quickly turned into exchanges about other topics.

"I really truly thought, especially Grade 9, Grade 10, that this was someone who really cared about me, and I really cared about him," Kearley said in an interview.

By the time Kearley was in Grade 10, the statement of claim alleges, LaRocque began isolating her from family and friends, as well as making "comments to Julia about her body, sending her messages with pictures of women in minimal clothing and telling Julia that the women in the photos had nice bodies and that Julia should aspire to be like them."

The lawsuit states that more overt sexual abuse started happening when Kearley was in Grade 11. At the time, she was starting to receive scholarship offers from schools in the U.S. and Canada, but she had to take some time off from running due to an injury.