Sexual assault: the SQ investigates a gymnastics coach to high-level

QMI agency

Wednesday, 24 January 2018 18:16

UPDATE
Wednesday, 24 January 2018 18:17

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Michel Arsenault, a gymnastics coach of high level targeted by allegations of sexual assaults on young athletes, is the subject of an investigation by the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), reported Radio-Canada on Wednesday.

According to what was stated by the SQ to the tv channel, the police has received five complaints, two of which are for sexual assaults. The lieutenant Martine Asselin said that the man would have made up to seven victims, aged 10 to 20 years old at the time of the facts, in the 80’s and 90’s, while he was in a position of authority as a gymnastics coach.

Arsenault is also the subject of allegations of assault, said the police.

Last December, the cbc had aired a story in which three women said they had been sexually assaulted by the coach when they were teenagers. They were also told to have been victims of violence physical and psychological.

The coach had left Quebec to settle in Alberta in 1994, after having been fired by the club Flipgym of Montreal. He opened a gymnastics club in Edmonton at the beginning of the millennium, the Champions Gymnastics, which he has been expelled by his wife and vice-president of the company, Valérie Oudin, following the story of Radio-Canada.

The SQ believes that Arsenault could have other victims and seek to obtain testimonies from both victims and witnesses. Anyone who has information can contact police at 1 800 659-4264.