Duff Friesen appeared Thursday afternoon at Saskatoon Provincial Court. (Nigel Maxwell/ paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Crime

P.A. man facing assault charges in connection to investigation at Saskatoon faith-based school

Jun 15, 2023 | 3:57 PM

A 65-year-old man from Prince Albert, with ties to Christian Centre Academy in Saskatoon and Regent Academy in Prince Albert, is facing 11 counts of assault with a weapon.

Duff Friesen, who had turned himself into police on Thursday, later also appeared at Saskatoon Provincial Court. The case was adjourned to July 17.

The charges have to do with an investigation by the Saskatoon police service’s interpersonal violence section into historical assaults with faith-based affiliations. In 2021 and 2022, several reports were made to the police service regarding allegations of assault occurring historically.

The victims and accused were known to one another through their affiliation at a Saskatoon faith-based institution. According to a statement from police, Friesen turned himself in on Thursday.

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From 2008 to August of last year, Friesen was principal at Regent Academy, which operates out of the basement in Prince Albert’s Plaza 88. He’s had no further connections with the school since then.

Friesen is also one of the defendants in a class action lawsuit involving alleged abuse at the school in Saskatoon.

Among other defendants, he is named as a teacher and, at times principal, of what was then Christian Centre Academy in Saskatoon. The defendants’ list includes 21 individuals, the Mile Two Church in Saskatoon and unnamed John and Jane Does.

In the statement of claim, Friesen’s name is connected to two specific incidents.

“In response to an allegation of whispering and giggling during church service at the church in the fall of 2003, on the Monday following the alleged whispering and giggling during church service, a majority of the students on the female volleyball team were lined up in the auditorium and berated by the director, John Olubobokun, school principal Duff Friesen and coach Fran Thevenot,” reads the claim.

One of the players, Caitlin Erickson, was then taken into a side room and struck repeatedly on the buttocks with a wooden paddle.

The lawsuit does not specify who was holding the paddle.

In the second incident that Friesen is named in, Coy Nolin also received corporal punishment.

“…when he was 11 years old, by Duff Friesen, then principal of Christian Centre Academy, who bent him over a chair and struck him hard on the buttocks three times for telling “inappropriate jokes”, while Nathan Rysavy observed as a witness,” said the suit.

nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell

— with files from CKOM