A former Edmonton Olympic Athletics Club coach was charged with historical sex offenses against five teenage men from the mid-1970s.
Kenneth Thomas Porter, 72, who lives in Ottawa, was charged Monday with five indecent assaults on a man and five charges of gross indecency, as stipulated in the Penal Code at the time, Edmonton police said in a release Tuesday evening.
Porter has since been released with a promise to appear. He is due to appear in an Edmonton court on December 7th.
Police claim the incidents took place during the track meetings held in Calgary and Edmonton between 1976 and 1980.
The teenagers were under his supervision at the time, police said.
Sexual assault investigators officially opened an investigation into Porter’s allegations in April 2019.
In May 2019, Porter was sacked as chairman of the Ottawa Lions Athletics Club and was banned from Athletics Canada after numerous complaints of sexual misconduct emerged.
Canadian Athletics Commissioner Frank Fowlie also issued a lifelong ban on Ottawa’s athletics coach Andy McInnis for sexual harassment and sexual assault allegations at the time.
It is believed that the two men were friends or had known each other for more than 40 years.
Porter was initially suspended for failing to take “reasonable remedial action” against his friend when he knew McInnis would be training club athletes, CBC reported at the time.
After the suspensions, nine men came forward to claim Porter had sexually disturbed them, according to a report by Fowlie.
