By Adam Brazeau
CORNWALL, Ontario – Cornwall police have charged a 50-year-old man with allegedly committing indecent acts at the Cornwall Aquatic Centre.
Roland Ladouceur, of Cornwall, was arrested Tuesday following a complaint that a man exposed himself in a family change room at the public pool on February 22.
Police located the man at his residence and took him into custody.
He was charged with nudity, indecent act and breach of probation and undertaking for failing to keep the peace.
The mother of a young person in the change room at the time of the alleged incident said the graphic nature of the event was jarring.
She said a man was toweling himself off in a provocative manor before getting changes in one of the so-called ‘family’ change rooms at the aquatic centre.
“He was walking about back and forth in front of my girls,” she said in a social media post. “I hurried up to have the kids dressed to report the man.”
The suspect was held for a bail hearing.
Christine Lefebvre, recreation supervisor with the City of Cornwall, said the area is difficult to police, given that staff are not actively monitoring the changing habits of aquatic centre patrons, and obviously don’t record change rooms with cameras.
The rules, though, concerning the use of the “family change rooms” are specific.
“You’re not supposed to walk naked in the change room,” she said.
Instead cubicles, including those for special-needs people, complete with barriers, are used by families so they can change.
“If you’re a father who brings their daughter to swim, and you don’t want to change them in the men’s change room, you can use the cubicles,” she said.
Lefebvre added there is signage at the aquatic centre to alert patrons who use the family change room about the rules.
