A lawsuit has been launched against formed a former Boy Scout volunteer for alleged sexual assault. It is believed that there are numerous other unknown victims.
Jens Binderup Jensen volunteered with Boy Scout troops and church youth groups in the Metro Vancouver area, according to the lawsuit. This gave him access to children attending day camps, field trips, and even overnight excursions, some of which carried them into Washington state across the border.
At the age of 47, Jensen admitted guilt to 11 counts of repeatedly sexually assaulting young boys in provincial court in Langley. It is believed that the victims included three of his nephews. However, the lawsuit claims that Jensen’s actions in B.C. included males well beyond of his own family.
In the complaint, a former victim identified only as S.C. claims that he first encountered Jensen through the Beaver Scouts in the early 1980s when he was five years old. The claim states that the grooming and abuse continued through the mid-1990s. In the years that followed, S.C. battled drug addiction, assaults, small-time crimes, being in and out of jail, and a protracted struggle with his physical and emotional well-being.
Many of the other boys who were about Jensen at the time, according to S.C., are either in jail, missing in the streets, or dead.
Scouts Canada, the United Church, the Vancouver school district (some of the Scout activities took place on school property), as well as several hotel chains where Jensen worked and where he allegedly brought the boys to be abused, are all named in a lawsuit that was filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
In the complaint against Jensen, it is alleged that the other institutions were negligent in allowing him to carry out his abuse for such a prolonged period of time. The list of alleged physical and mental abuse is extensive and includes anything from early rape and sexual contact to feeding S.C. booze and marijuana and urging him to draw other people into Jensen’s orbit.
S.C. was in the presence of Jensen starting when he was five or six years old, thus he has little to no memories of a life before him. According to the lawsuit, Jensen allegedly provided booze and narcotics to the boy’s mother in exchange for access to the child.
S.C. claims that he still experiences night terrors, occasionally wets the bed, struggles with anxiety and sadness, and finds it challenging to manage his anger. In addition to a long list of bodily and emotional suffering, the lawsuit alleges moral and traumatic injury, signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, decreased capacity to work and engage in personal relationships, and more.
