The Nova Scotia government is denying allegations that staff at a youth detention centre were repeatedly told a swim instructor was sexually abusing incarcerated residents before he left his job of 29 years in 2017.

The assertion is part of a notice of defence submitted in July 2020 by the province in response to a class action filed a few months earlier on behalf of three former residents who allege they were sexually abused by the instructor.

The two court documents shed light on a seven-year RCMP investigation that led to the arrest last month of 75-year-old Donald Douglas Williams. He is facing 66 charges stemming from the alleged abuse of 30 young people between 1989 and 2015.

In the notice of defence, the government claims each of the plaintiffs were told how to report sexual abus

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