Correction: This story has been corrected from an earlier version to show Robert Clarke received two years in federal prison, not three years. The length of probation is three years.
OTTAWA – A former school teacher from Morrisburg has been sentenced to two years in prison for a series of sexual assaults between the early 1970s and early 1990s.
Robert Clarke pleaded guilty last month in an Ottawa court (March 21) to eight of the 11 charges he was facing – six counts of gross indecency and two counts of sexual assault.
The additional charges of gross indecency, sexual assault and sexual exploitation were withdrawn by the Crown.
Clarke was 72 years old when the first charges were filed in June 2016 by the Ottawa Police Service Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Section.
A male student had told police he was inappropriately touched by Clarke in the early 1980s, while Clarke was a school teacher with the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.
After the initial charge and over the course of several months in 2016, a total of seven other victims came forward to say they were abused by Clarke.
In addition to his two year prison sentence, Clarke will be on probation for three years.
He will be on the national sex offender registry for 20 years, is under a so-called parks order for life (not able to go places where children under 16 years of age frequent) and is banned from owning or possessing weapons for 10 years.