Ed. note: some details in this story may offend some readers.

Twenty years after charges were laid, Dudley Taylor finally came to the Whitehorse courthouse this week to be tried on charges of repeatedly sexually assaulting two young boys and a young girl.

The story as it was laid out in the testimonies of the complainants' mother and her four children was often confused - full of gaps in evidence and memory - and obviously difficult for them to tell.

The three original complainants, who were 12, 11 and eight at the time the allegations were made, were joined by their youngest brother, who was six at the time the family lived in Whitehorse. His evidence was added to the story just recently, with charges being laid this week.

The names of all the family members are protected by a publication ban.

All of the family witnesses agreed on the basic facts: they moved to Whitehorse from Edmonton sometime in early 1989.

They first lived in a duplex in Riverdale, then moved to a log cabin owned by a friend of Taylor's, and finally to a holiday trailer set up near Mile 6.8 on the Mayo Road.

There was no water or electricity at the latter two homes and the whole family would bathe at the public showers in the MacKenzie Trailer Park off the Alaska Highway.

By everyone's recollection, the mother would bathe with her daughter, while Taylor would take the boys.

The mother said she thought Taylor's relationship with her children was "very good.”

"I was very proud Dudley was part of our family and I thought he was a good role model for my children,” she told Yukon Supreme Court Justice Roland Haines, who is deciding the case.

She said she was very happy with the now 70-year-old man. "I thought we would be together for a long time,” she said.

But all that changed in the spring of 1990, when her two eldest children told her they had been grossly and repeatedly sexually assaulted by the man they called Dad.

The first complainant to take the stand was the oldest son. He said the abuse started in the work shed at the log cabin house.

In the first incident he said he could remember, Taylor performed oral sex on the boy. He said he could not remember how his pants were removed or what, if anything, Taylor said to him before and after.

The abuse escalated, he said, to anal intercourse. It would usually happen when the family would go to the public showers.

"(Taylor) would usually shower with me and he would sometimes shower with my brothers,” he said.

In a quiet voice, the family's oldest son briefly described a regular schedule of abuse wherein the man would penetrate the boy and perform or demand oral sex. He said he recalled one time when he penetrated Taylor.

He said several times that when he recently went over the statement he gave to police 19 years ago, he read of many details and incidents of abuse which he no longer remembers.

"Honest to God, I don't remember,' he said over and over again in answer to both lawyers' questions.

When asked why he didn't tell anyone about the abuse for so long, he said he couldn't remember, but added "I wasn't threatened by Dudley Taylor.

"If I was scared, it must have been for my mom.”

When pressed on that point, he made vague reference to telling his mother about "a past incident” of abuse by someone other than Taylor; she did nothing about it, he said. He did not expand on that point, nor was he asked to.

The abuse came to light, he said, when he told his younger sister what was happening to him.

"She said it happened to her too,” he told the court.

According to the sister's testimony, she was the first victim, and the one who was most often targeted.

She said the abuse began at Taylor's workshop in Edmonton, when he showed her his penis and asked her to touch it. She refused that time, but when they moved to Whitehorse, the extreme assaults began, she said.

She said Taylor would regularly have anal sex with her from the time they lived in Riverdale. The assaults occurred in many places, she said: in the different houses where they lived, in the car, in outbuildings around the properties and during a trip to Texas. She said he would at times fondle her in his bed while her mother slept beside them.

She was 10 and 11 at the time of the alleged assaults.

When asked why she never told anyone, the woman said she once told her best friend about it in a letter and never heard from the friend again.

She said she was afraid no one would believe her and that if she told her mother "she would pick him over me.”

She said she finally talked about it when her brother came to her one night and "asked me if I felt anything weird about Dudley.”

The two went to their mother and told her they have been abused.

"Mom asked if we should stay and confront Dudley or go to the police station - we said we wanted to go to the police.”

When they got to the station, their eight-year-old brother said he too wanted to make a statement.

He told the police then that Taylor has fondled him while on a fishing trip to Alaska. This week, he told the court Taylor had anal sex with him in the MacKenzie showers, as well as in Alaska. He recalled another incident when Taylor masturbated in front of him.

Like his brother before him, the now 27-year-old man repeatedly said he could not remember when pressed for more detail. He said he didn't remember specific incidents, just that they happened.

Only the sister - who is a teacher and school counsellor - said she had talked extensively about the alleged assaults. The brothers said although they had told their girlfriends they had been abused and had taken counselling, they didn't discuss the incidents in detail.

The newest charge against Taylor was made by the family's youngest brother. He said the first time he ever made an accusation was when his mother called to tell him Taylor had been arrested in Washington state last year.

"She persisted on asking questions if anything happened,” he told the court. After some prodding by his mother, he said yes.

He told the court Taylor had once pulled on his testicles when they were in the shower together.

"It was just once.”

Asked why he didn't come forward earlier, he said he didn't think it was sexual abuse.

"I didn't think nothing of it,” he said. "I was six years old, it didn't seem like an offence ... In a six-year-old's mind, nothing happened.”

He said he knew something bad was going on when the whole family went to the police station 19 years ago, but didn't ask what was happening.

Although the youngest brother said he didn't tell anyone about his allegation until recently, a letter written by his mother to the Crown prosecutor in 1990 says otherwise.

The mother wrote that her youngest had told her about Taylor touching him. On the stand, she also said she had forgotten about the accusation until she was shown the letter.

Their mother's testimony was contradictory in other areas as well. She said she remembered being with Taylor for about three months before moving with him to Whitehorse, but then said her records showed she had been with him for three years.

She said she had no contact with Taylor after the charges were laid, then said he had fixed her car and they had talked on the phone about money he owed her daughter.

She could not remember how old her children would have been at the time the charges were made.

She said she had a good relationship with all of her sons. They said otherwise.

During the mother's cross-examination, defence lawyer Gordon Coffin said, "You were eager to leave (Whitehorse) and you thought of a way you could finance your move.”

He was referring to $20,000 worth of victim services funds the family received.

"Wrong,” she replied.

Coffin began each of the other four cross-examinations by asking the siblings if they remember things better now than they did when they first made the report.

Each of them said they likely remembered better then. He went on to compare their statements made to police and their evidence at the preliminary hearing (held in 1990) to what they said in court this week, pointing out conflicting information about how many times the alleged assaults occurred, where they occurred and what they consisted of.

The lawyer suggested they had created memories by talking about the allegations within the family and during the years of counselling which followed the charges.

All defended their testimonies, saying that if their recollection wasn't perfect it was because they had blocked out the painful memories.

"It could be a little off,” one of the brothers said of his testimony, "but it happened.”

Coffin ended every cross-examination with the same question.

"I suggest to you that you have memories, but they are not accurate memories. This is a story that has been built out of nothing over the years, isn't it?”

Each of the four siblings denied Coffin's version.

"I know (it) happened and I don't really care what you think,” said the sister.