Brent Gabona, a former care aide who was employed at Shepherd’s Villa in Hepburn from 1992 to 2009, pleaded guilty in provincial court in Rosthern on Wednesday, March 8 to sexually assaulting several vulnerable residents of the group home during the time he worked there.
Gabona was facing a total of ten charges. He pleaded guilty by telephone from his home in Waldheim to five of those charges, including three counts of sexual assault and two counts of sexual assault of a person with a disability.
He is scheduled to appear in Rosthern provincial court on October 11 to face a sentencing hearing. At that time, an additional two counts of sexual assault and three counts of sexual assault of a person with a disability will be stayed at the conclusion of sentencing.
Gabona was initially taken into custody when he was arrested by Rosthern RMCP on May 10, 2022; but was released following his first court appearance in Saskatoon May 13, and has been out on his own recognizance ever since.
The names of several victims cannot be released because of a court-ordered publication ban. However, the publication ban was lifted in June, 2022 for Darryl Boguski, one of the residents victimized by Gabona. The 62-year-old has an intellectual disability, is autistic, has limited verbal communication ability, is epileptic, and is blind. He was a resident at Shepherd’s Villa from 1990 until 2015, when he was removed for behavioural issues. He now lives with his brother, Rick Boguski, in southern Alberta, but still bears the lasting physical and emotional scars of 17 years of horrendous abuse at the hands of Gabona.
The two brothers travelled several hours to attend the court hearing in Rosthern. It was a “gruelling trip,” according to Rick, because Darryl was still dealing with the effects of a recent surgery in addition to the psychological turmoil of hearing the name of the sexual predator who repeatedly assaulted him. It was the fifth time the pair have travelled to Rosthern for court appearances over the past ten months.
“It was a very difficult day,” said Rick in an interview from his home in Alberta on March 9. “It was very hard on Darryl, physically and emotionally, on top of all the other ongoing challenges he lives with every day.
“Brent Gabona was not even in the courtroom, and that’s truly an insult to vulnerable people everywhere; that a rapist can sit in the comfort of his own home and enter a guilty plea without having to face his victims or the community. It’s a slap in the face that an admitted rapist can walk around town and be free, while we struggle to put the pieces together of what happened to Darryl. Brent Gabona should be behind bars.
“We wanted this to go to trial, because there are still too many unanswered questions,” added Rick. “I don’t believe that Brent Gabona has confessed to all his crimes. The evidence is overwhelming that there are other victims. I’ve examined the group home records and medical records, and I’m sure he was much more violent than he’s letting on.”
Al and Naomi Hawkins agree. They’re the parents of the late Derek Hawkins, a resident of Shepherd’s Villa who was in Gabona’s care from 2003 to 2005, and who passed away in 2011. Like Darryl Boguski, Derek Hawkins was removed from Shepherd’s Villa because of his behaviour.
“Derek was always blamed for his behaviours,” said Naomi Hawkins in an interview March 9. “But the reality is that his behaviour was quite likely a response to the abuse we think he suffered at the hands of Brent Gabona.
“Our son had the cognitive ability of a six-year-old, and we suspect Derek suffered abuse at the hands of Brent Gabona as he was his primary care-giver, and was with him every day.
“In one incident report, Brent Gabona, in his own handwriting, stated that he told Derek to ‘grow up and act like a 20-year-old’. When he puts something like that in writing, you can just imagine what he would have said to Derek verbally. We have pages of Brent Gabona’s hand-written reports, and they give a very clear picture of the bully and the monster he was.”
Al Hawkins said despite the fact that a police investigation has been launched in their son’s case, no charges in connection with it have yet been laid against Brent Gabona.
“Our son’s case is still open and under investigation, and we’re compiling information we’ve obtained under the privacy act,” said Al. “We’re forwarding all the evidence we can find to the RCMP, but there hasn’t been much movement on the part of the police. We know from the evidence that the people in charge at Shepherd’s Villa did not do their due diligence, and neither did the provincial social services department.
“At the end of the day, Brent Gabona sexually assaulted individuals at Shepherd’s Villa. He’s confessed and pleaded guilty. I’m having a hard time believing our son wasn’t assaulted, because Brent Gabona was his primary care giver. He was with our son eight hours a day for two years, and there are multiple hours throughout those days, that are not accounted for in the record.”
Naomi said her son’s behaviour changed dramatically during those two years. She said they raised their concerns several times to administrators at the group home, and also to social services department case workers who signed off 170 incident reports over 24 months involving Derek, but to no avail.
“They were never looked into or answered,” she said. “We’re doing what we can to move our son’s case forward, but we haven’t heard a peep from anyone in the provincial government.
“It’s sickening that Brent Gabona, who’s a serial rapist who’s preyed upon the most vulnerable people in our society over 20 years, is not in jail today. He’s proven to have raped three people. Who’s he going to be preying on next while he’s out waiting for a court date?”
Rick Boguski said he’s disappointed in the way the justice system has handled his brother’s case, noting that while media coverage has helped shine a light on the vulnerability of people like Darryl, too often sexual predators fly under the radar. He noted that non-verbal, intellectually-challenged people in group homes and other institutions are five to seven times more likely to be victims of sexual assault because they’re unable to defend themselves and have difficulty communicating effectively.
“We don’t believe the justice system is going to help Darryl,” he said. “I’m not counting on a long sentence for Brent Gabona. Throughout the history of this case, Brent Gabona has been accommodated all the way along, while Darryl has been left out to dry.”