News

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty lashed out at a U.S. judge for using Canada as a “dumping ground” for those convicted of sexual offences.

Mr. McGuinty told reporters Tuesday that it is up to the federal government to attempt to overturn an unusual punishment that will allow a teacher convicted of sexually abusing a 15-year-old student to serve his sentence in Canada.

Under a plea bargain approved yesterday by a New York state court, Malcolm Watson will spend the next three years on probation in Canada and enter the United States only to report to his probation officer. Mr. Watson, 35, has a wife and three children in Fort Erie, Ont. He is a U.S. citizen.

“This is obviously not the kind of precedent that we want to allow the Americans to establish,” Mr. McGuinty said. “It's not the kind of thing we're prepared to accept.”

Mr. Watson should serve his sentence in the United States, where the offence took place, Mr. McGuinty said.

“We will work with the federal government and we hope we are of one mind in this regard to ensure that we don't become some kind of a dumping ground for convicted offenders south of the border,” he said.

Mr. Watson's legal troubles began last April when a security guard at a Cheektowaga shopping mall noticed him sitting in a parked car for two hours with a 15-year-old girl. Mr. Watson was criminally charged and fired from his job at the elite Buffalo Seminary girls' school, where he was known as a charismatic teacher. In August, he was convicted of endangering the welfare of a child and third-degree sexual abuse.

Mr. Watson's plea deal was first announced in August, before Cheektowago Town Court Justice Thomas Kolbert, but he was not formally sentenced until yesterday.

Since losing his teaching job, he has been working as a salesman in Fort Erie.

“It is a bizarre, absolutely bizarre judgment,” said New Democrat MPP Michael Prue, who called for Mr. Thomas to be deported. “He should not be here in exile,” he said.