Police do second aerial search Wednesday for missing Bathurst teen

Police took to the sky Wednesday in search of a Bathurst teenager who has been missing since May 11.

The Bathurst Police Force, assisted by RCMP air services and Chaleur RCMP, were conducting an aerial search in the city of Bathurst and surrounding areas for Madison-Roy Boudreau, said Bathurst Police Sgt. Julie Daigle, in a news release Wednesday.

The news release said no further questions would be answered at this time.

The aerial search is the second to be done in less than two weeks as part of efforts to find Roy-Boudreau, who was last seen getting into a grey Ford Ranger pickup truck.

By the next day, police had located the vehicle and kept it under surveillance until May 13, when the driver was arrested. Police have not named that person.

About a week after her disappearance, members of the Bathurst Police Force, RCMP and local search and rescue organizations conducted a week-long ground search in the area of a quarry in Bathurst's west end.

Days later, at a news conference on May 27, Bathurst police Chief Stéphane Roy went through a timeline of the search for Roy-Boudreau, which included mention of the arrest of 42-year-old Steven Laurette of South Tetagouche, a small community west of Bathurst.

Roy declined to say why Laurette was mentioned, or whether he's a person of interest in the case or the owner of the grey pickup truck.

On May 14, Laurette appeared in court and was charged with failing to abide by a court undertaking between May 10 and 11 in Bathurst. He's accused of breaching the condition that he not be in the presence of females under the age of 18 unless he is accompanied by someone over 18 who is "aware of the present investigation."

The present investigation centres on sexual assault allegations involving a complainant under the age of 16.

According to court records, Laurette was charged in September 2019 with sexual assault and sexual interference. The latter offence, according to the Criminal Code, applies to, "every person who, for a sexual purpose, touches, directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or with an object, any part of the body of a person under the age of 16 years."

The incident is alleged to have occurred between Dec. 1, 2018, and March 12, 2019, at or near Petit-Rocher.

A preliminary inquiry has been scheduled in that case on Aug. 17.