What we still don’t know about why complaints against Matthew Craswell weren’t reported
CBC
WARNING: This story contains disturbing descriptions of child sex abuse. Resources and supports for anyone who has experienced sexual violence can be found at the bottom of this story.
It’s not clear why complaints about a P.E.I. substitute teacher inappropriately touching students in the classroom at two separate primary schools weren’t reported to police or child welfare officials.
Matthew Craswell has pleaded guilty to sexually touching a student at a Charlottetown elementary school in 2023 and a different student at a school in Stratford, east of the P.E.I. capital, in 2024. He’s also pleaded guilty to unrelated child pornography charges.
Both classroom incidents only came to the attention of police while they were investigating Craswell for child pornography because he boasted about them online.
P.E.I.’s Child Sex Abuse Protocol requires mandatory reporting of suspected cases of child sexual abuse to the director of child protection or a peace officer. It applies to everyone, including school/program personnel.
But P.E.I.’s Public Schools Branch told CBC News in 2025 - when Craswell’s crimes were first made public - that both cases involved students being touched on the stomach and leg, and there was no evidence to suggest the incidents were sexual in nature.
That was backed up by the court documents available at the time, which centred around the second incident which took place at Glen Stewart Primary School in 2024.
"During a game of frogs and flies he touched [a child] inappropriately by rubbing her 'like a pet' underneath her clothing in the area of her stomach and chest," reads the statement of facts in connection with that case.
Little was known about the 2023 incident at that time, only that it happened at a Charlottetown-area elementary school. Craswell hadn’t yet been charged in connection with that incident, and none of the details had been made public.
But a new set of court documents connected with the incident at West Kent Elementary School paint a different picture.
CBC News has asked the Public Schools Branch what exactly officials knew about the 2023 complaint against Craswell but has not yet received a response.
But we do know that Craswell was allowed to continue teaching after he touched “the area of [a child’s] breasts and vagina” and after that incident was reported to the school official.
We have no way of knowing what exactly school officials were told about how the student was touched or where on her body Craswell touched her.
What we do know comes from the agreed statement of facts in the case.
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