/PG/ Halifax, Canada (Signal High) —– A former student at Acadia Divinity College in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, has filed a lawsuit against the institution alleging she was sexually abused by one of her professors while receiving mental health counselling between 1989 and 1991.
College president Rev. Anna Robbins issued a statement Wednesday saying the allegations are disturbing and the school is taking the matter very seriously. She said she had just learned about the lawsuit and that it would be inappropriate to offer further comment. The matter has yet to be heard in court.
The lawsuit alleges the student was sexually abused by Rev. Dennis Veinotte, the victim’s counsellor and one of her professors. It is alleged that Veinotte, who died in 2012, used his considerable position of influence and cultivated a relationship of trust with the victim and that there were numerous instances of sexual assault and battery.”
The lawsuit alleges that the assaults took place on school property and that the school failed to fulfil its obligation to protect the plaintiff from “physical, sexual, mental and emotional abuse […] the (college) was negligent because it knew or ought to have known that Rev. Veinotte had displayed sexually abusive tendencies.”
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