Thomas Kenneth Porter, 75, began a trial on more than a dozen sex abuse charges in Edmonton’s Court of King’s Bench Monday. He has pleaded not guilty
Warning: this story contains details some readers may find disturbing.
A man once considered among Canada’s top track and field coaches sat silently in an Edmonton courtroom as a former athlete accused him of sexually abusing him four decades ago.
Thomas Kenneth Porter, 75, began a trial on more than a dozen sex abuse charges in Edmonton’s Court of King’s Bench Monday. He has pleaded not guilty.
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Crown prosecutors allege Porter, who also went by Ken, sexually touched five boys when he was a sprinting coach with the Edmonton Olympic Track and Field Club in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Now an Ottawa resident, Porter was charged by Edmonton city police in 2020. The probe followed an investigation by Athletics Canada into the Ottawa Lions track club, which saw Porter dismissed from his role as founding president.
The first of Porter’s accusers to take the stand was Chris Dallin, who started running for the Edmonton club when he was 14 or 15.
Dallin was a talented sprinter who dreamed of representing Canada in the decathlon. He switched clubs to join Porter, who studied under Gerard Mach, the Canadian national coach.
“He had a reputation for being the best in Western Canada,” Dallin said of Porter.
Dallin claims he shared a bedroom with Porter during a meet in Saskatoon in 1979. Now 61, Dallin said he remembers “clear as day” waking up to find Porter performing oral sex on him under the covers of his bed.
“I jumped up on the bed and yelled at him, ‘What the f— do you think you’re doing?’” he recalled.
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“He apologized. He somehow talked me into not reporting it to anybody.”
According to Dallin — who requested the mandatory publication ban on his name be lifted — the incident was the culmination of a series of cases of sexual touching. Most were under the guise of sports massages given in public before or after practice, he claimed.
“He would have the talcum powder out and there would be massages of my hamstrings and quadriceps and calf muscles,” Dallin said.
Most uncomfortable were the quad massages, during which Porter allegedly rubbed his forearms against Dallin’s genitals.
“It was extremely creepy, but I was conflicted,” he said. “I was a young person, and here was this adult who’s touching me, but telling me there’s a physical benefit to it. And he is in a position of trust, and I suspected he knew what was best for me. But I still found it very uncomfortable.”
Dallin continued to train with Porter after the Saskatoon hotel incident. He claims the coach tried to perform oral sex on him again when the two shared a hotel room while travelling to a track meet in Richmond, B.C. He said they were both “extremely drunk” and that it was common for Porter and his teenage athletes to drink alcohol together at dinner.
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Porter later left his post at the Olympic Track and Field Club and moved to Australia. When Porter invited Dallin to travel to the country for a three-week training program, he accepted.
Dallin acknowledged some might be confused by his decision to visit Porter, who at the time was a member of the Commonwealth Games organizing committee.
“I will just say that as a young man, I was desperate to repair or fix a situation that was unfixable,” he told court. “I thought that by going to Australia we could repair this relationship that had been broken.”
Dallin did not tell anyone about the alleged abuse until his 40s. He first told his wife, then a priest, who he spoke with as part of an Alcoholics Anonymous program.
In 2007, Dallin gave a statement to RCMP near his home in Tsawwassen, B.C. The officer “didn’t really care about me or my story,” Dallin claimed.
He later spoke to police in Saskatoon and Edmonton, as well as an investigator for Athletics Canada.
Defence lawyer Solomon Friedman spent Monday afternoon cross-examining Dallin on his various statements. He asked repeatedly about Dallin’s contact with other complainants, noting the Athletics Canada investigator put him in touch with some of the other men.
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Friedman also honed in on Dallin’s claim that Porter changed room assignments at the Saskatoon hotel to ensure they bunked together — which other members of the team were unable to corroborate.
The defence also produced a newspaper article calling into question Dallin’s timeline of events. The article noted Dallin broke his leg tobogganing in early 1979 and could not have competed at the Saskatoon meet that year.
Justice Nicholas Devlin is hearing the case without a jury. The trial is scheduled to last 10 days.
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