When I was 11 years old our school bus driver (whose name was Ralph) in Prince Edward Island started letting one of the boys sit on his lap while he drove us all home. He swore us to secrecy because we all knew the boy wasn't supposed to be sitting on the bus driver's lap...
Over a period of a month the bus driver Ralph started molesting the boy, who was about 7 at the time. He started fondling him sexually right in front of us.
We (the older kids) knew that we should be telling our parents, our teachers or the police... but the bus driver knew where we lived and reminded/threatened us. Some of us were also thanking our lucky stars it wasn't us up there on driver's lap being molested. Our previous promise was part of the issue for the smaller children, who were very confused as to what was going on, but for the older kids it was a matter of indecision. We wanted to tell someone but the threat of violence and whether anyone would listen brought serious doubts.
Eventually Ralph became so confident he pulled his penis out of his pants and instructed the boy to stroke it for him. He had to stop the bus at one point because he couldn't concentrate on the road enough.
After that incident myself and several other students went to the principal to complain. Ralph was arrested, but oddly enough never charged. He was fired, shunned in public and people stopped talking to him (or when they did talk it was to shout insults at him).
Ralph eventually moved to British Columbia and we never heard from him again. He was never charged, never listed as a sex offender and for all we know could be driving bus again or coaching baseball for young boys.
The boy, Michael or Mikey, went to psychologists for several years and by the time he was a teenager was a goth and a drug addict. He was messed up for life. Last I heard he moved to Montreal.
My point is thus: Mikey's life was essentially ruined by what happened and Ralph got away with it. I personally still have nightmares about what happened and I'm fairly certain other people involved have been disturbed as well.
What boggles my mind is how Ralph managed to get away scot-free. We had many witnesses and a seriously confused molested boy.
Is that the state of our child protection laws in Canada? That sex criminals get away without even being charged? It makes me sick to my stomach.
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