Form 39.

08
2011
BETWEEN:
Hfx. No. 343536
AUBREY PELLEY and DEANNA SMITH
FEB 1 7 2012
L ...... :. ::.:::.,. .
-AND-
THE NOVA SCOTIA HOME FOR COLORED CHILDREN, a body
corporate and THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF NOVA SCOTIA.
representing Her Majesty the Queen in right of the Province of Nova
Scotia
DEFENDANTS
Proceeding under the Class Proceedings Act, S.N.S 2007, c. 28
Affidavit of Star-Ann Smith
I, Star-Ann Smith, of the city of St. John in the Province of New Brunswick MAKE
OATH AND SAY THAT:
1. I have knowledge of the matters deposed to below. Where my knowledge is
based on information obtained from others, I have so stated below, and I believe that
information to be true.
2. I am providing this affidavit in support of the Plaintiffs' motion to have the within
proposed class proceeding certified as a class proceeding.
3. I was born in Nova Scotia on January 28, 1964. I have one brother and two
sisters. I am the oldest sibling.
4. My siblings and I were raised by my mother and father in Nova Scotia. After my
parents separated, my mother was in and out of mental institutions. In approximately
1975 someone called child welfare to report that she was not often around and that I
was taking care of my sisters and brother. Child welfare came to our home one day and
discussed with my mother their view that a placement in the Nova Scotia Home for
Coloured Children would be the best place for us. My mother agreed to place us in the
care of Child Welfare.
5. A child care worker drove us from our mother's home in Dartmouth to the
Coloured Home when I was 11 years old. I remember being really scared when I arrived
at the Home. I have very little memories of my first two years there.
6. My memories start when I turned 13 years old. It was around that time that I was
given my own room. It was after being given my own room that staff member Georgie
Williams began to molest me.
8. Georgie Williams worked the night shift at the Home. It was always near the end
of his "rounds" that he would enter my room and close the door. After closing the door
he would come over to my bed. He would sit on my bed and begin to kiss me and touch
my vagina and breasts. He would expose himself to me. I was scared. He was much
bigger than me. I stayed silent and he pretty much did whatever he wanted to me. I just
wanted to get it over with each night.
9. I had never even seen my parents kiss before. I did not know or understand what
Georgie Williams was doing to me. The only thing I knew was that I didn't like it.
10. After most occasions, Georgie Williams would warn me not to tell anyone about
what he was doing to me. He would say that if I ever told anyone, no one would believe
me. Georgie Williams continued to molest me in this manner every night he was on duty
during my entire stay at the Home. He was on duty most nights.
11. Georgie Williams was responsible for driving us places at the Home. If we were
going to go anywhere, it had to be in a van driven by him. On Friday nights and on
Saturdays we would often want to go swimming at the YMCA. Georgie Williams would
not take us to the swimming pool unless someone performed sexual favors on him.
12. I recall drawing straws with other female residents to see who would meet
Georgie Williams. The female who drew the shortest straw would have meet Georgie
Williams for sexual favors. Sometimes I had to perform sexual favors on Georgie
Williams. He would wait in a corridor leading to the back steps of the Home for the
female to meet him there. It was by these back steps where he would force females to
perform sexual favours.
13. There were many occasions where I did not draw the shortest straw. I would wait
with other residents for the return of the female who did draw the short straw. We would
wait for her to tell us that the act had been performed and for us to go to meet Georgie
Williams by the Home's van. On several occasions Georgie Williams sent this female
back to ask for me. Though I did not draw the shortest straw on those occasions, I
would still have to meet Georgie Williams in the corridor by the back steps of the Home.
14. I recall an occasion where I witnessed staff member Sherri Bernard beating
resident Robyn Atwell. Sherri Bernard was on top of her in a hallway punching her in the
face. I saw blood on Robin's face and by the floor around her. I tried to help Robin.
When I tried to pull Sherri Bernard off of her, she swung a fist full of keys and punched
me in my mouth. My mouth started to bleed.
15. Sherri Bernard eventually stopped the assault and went to her office where our
records were kept. Someone called the police, who attended the Home. They spoke
with me when they came. I told them what had happened and showed them my
bloodied mouth. One of the policemen was given my file from Sherri Bernard. I stood
there as he read it. He told me that my file read that I had beaten myself up for attention.
I was very upset at this lie. I have never beaten myself up. I would not have punched
myself in the face. I do not believe that the police ever did anything as a result of the
vicious assault to Robin and myself. My child care worker did not visit me any time after
this incident.
16. Staff member Mrs. Brown once caught me and another resident hiding in the
"little girls" bathroom on the main floor. We did not want to go to church that day. We
had locked the door. Mrs. Brown was furious. She was shouting while she kicked the
door down. The door came completely off its hinges and fell into the bathroom. She flew
into the room carrying a switch and beat us both harshly with it. Our arms, legs and
torsos were covered in welts and bruises for many days after this beating. These marks
were obvious to anyone who looked at us.
17. Physical assaults by staff members on residents were a common occurrence at
the Home. All the residents knew that there was a room on the third floor of the Home
where the severely beaten were taken until they healed. If we knew that someone had
been badly beaten, and we didn't see that resident around for a week or two, we knew
that he or she was taken to "that room". I believe that staff members would hide the
severely beaten in that room to keep the really bad injuries out of sight.
18. When my youngest sister was five years old she was severely beaten by staff
member Daisy Bundy. I was on the other side of the closed door of the "little girls dorm".
On the other side I could hear Mrs. Bundy assaulting my sister. I could hear my sister
cry. Then I heard the crying stop. A little while later I witnessed Mrs. Bundy carry my
unconscious sister out of the room. My sister's five year old body was very little at the
time. I saw that her unconscious body was black and blue. She looked dead. I was very
upset.
19. I watched as Mrs. Bundy carried her away from the public area of the Home. I did
not see my sister for over two weeks. I did not know if she was taken to "that room" on
the third floor or whether she was dead. I was scared of Mrs. Bundy but one time got
the courage to ask her where my sister was. She told me, "maybe she's dead, maybe
she isn't". I was very upset by this. I was very happy to see my sister again when she
was brought to the downstairs public area again after over two weeks. I hugged her and
checked her over but I did not talk about what happened. It was an unspoken thing at
the Home; residents would not talk to each other about the abuses being committed all
around us.
20. I do not believe that my sister was taken to a hospital or to see a doctor. I
believe that she was not brought to see a doctor was because the beating left marks on
her body which would have raised suspicion.
21. I recall one evening in the Home where I attended my little brother's room. I
opened the door to his room and saw my brother and at least two other people in the
room. At least one was a male staff member. The male staff member was standing
behind my brother. He and my brother had their pants down. I was very upset and ran
immediately down the hall. Looking back on the scene, I believe that the male staff
member was having intercourse with my brother. My brother was approximately 8 years
old at the time. I have never discussed this with my brother.
21. I went to school with the son of a staff member named Sheila States. He and I
were friends. He came to the Home to visit a couple times. When Mrs. States
discovered this she was very upset. She yelled at me, saying, "A Home girl isn't good
enough for my son!", "You'll end up as nothing but a whore", "All you'll be good for is
lying on your back", "Even your own parents don't want you". When I argued back on
one occasion, she took off her high heel shoe and hit me with it. Her son, my friend,
stopped coming to the Home.
22. I missed my parents very much while a resident at the Home. Staff members
Althea Tolliver, Sheila States, Sherri Bernard, and Julie Gross use to tell me that my
parents never visited because they didn't want me. These staff members would
frequently call me "stupid" and tell me that "You'll would never amount to anything".
23. I recall one time when I got an "A" in school. I was very proud and brought the
grade back to staff members of the Home. They did not care and put me down. I recall
thinking after that, "If no one cares, why should I?" I stopped trying in school. No one
ever supervised my homework or made sure I went to class.
24. When I was fourteen years old, I attended school for only 24 days during the
entire school year. No one cared. I was never questioned about this by a staff member
or my child care worker.
25. I recall being visited by a child care worker only once during my entire stay at the
Home. This was during my first year there.
26. There was never anything to do at the Home. There were no toys or sport
equipment. Other than the drives we would try to get from Georgie Williams, there were
no planned outings. We were always bored. Once I got so bored that I shaved off my
eyebrows. I immediately regretted it.
27. The abuses I was suffering on a daily basis would often be more than I could
bear. I ran away from the Home over twenty times during my residency. Despite having
run away from the Home over 20 times, I was never asked to meet with a child care
worker. Either the child care worker assigned to me did not know I had run away, or
didn't care where I was.
28. On numerous occasions after I ran away, Georgie Williams tracked me down in
the Home's van. When he found me he would become enraged. Each time, he would
jump out of the van, run up to me, grab me by the hair, pull me to the van, violently
throw me into the rear of the van, enter the back of the van himself, close the van doors,
and begin to brutally assault me. These assaults consisted of punches to various parts
of my body. I would be bruised from these assaults. He was careful never to punch me
in the face. Though the punches thrown by Georgie Williams were painful, I never cried
in front of him. But, after each such assault, the moment I got back to my room I would
start crying for long periods of time.
29. In approximately late 1980, I ran away for the last time. I was helped to run away
by a very kind older male staff member named Mr. Sparks. I had recently turned 16 and
I knew that the Home would place me on birth control. While I had not yet been raped, I
knew from my conversations with the other girls that it was only a matter of time. I told
Mr. Sparks that I was afraid of what was going to happen to me now that I was sixteen
and on birth control. Mr. Sparks promised that he would protect me. He did so by
secretly driving me away from the Home and to a nearby bus station. He could have
been fired for helping me escape but he did it anyways. I will always be grateful to Mr.
Sparks. I believe that Mr. Sparks knew about the sexual abuses being committed by
staff at the Home.
30. On the last time I ran away, I made it all the way back to my mother's house in St.
John. I had been there for approximately three weeks when my mother received a
phone call from the Home to advise her that! had run away and that I had been missing
for the past three weeks and that they had no clue of my whereabouts. My mother was
very upset that it took the Home three weeks to notify her of this. Though I was still a
ward of the Province, she did not let me return to the Home.
31. I am not sure if my child care worker was informed by the Home that I had been
missing for three weeks. In any event, it took approximately two months before the
Children's Aid Society contacted my mother after I had gone missing from the Home.
32. To this day, I have never talked about the details of my experiences at the Home
with any other former residents, including my own siblings. It is too painful. I have had
one or two brief discussions with a friend of mine, who is a former resident, about the
Home. We did not delve into details as we quickly realized that these discussions
brought up too many painful memories. We no longer talk about it when we get together.
SWORN TO at Halifax in the )
Province of Nova Scotia, this )
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MICHAEL DULL
A Barrister of the Supreme
Court of Nova Scotia
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Star-Ann Smith