Questions are being raised in Saint John about how disgraced former city councillor Donnie Snook befriended children and whether a public inquiry is needed.

Snook pleaded guilty to a total of 46 charges on Wednesday. The charges range from producing and distributing child pornography to sexual assault. There are 17 named victims in the case, ranging in age from five to 15.

“He’s damaged children. A life sentence, scarred for life,” says Bobby Hayes, who runs the Joshua Group, a charity organization that helps underprivileged children.

Hayes says he knows many of Snook’s victims and is worried about them.

“I know one kid in particular, he’s gone into heavy-duty counseling and it’s very damaging,” he says. “It’s heartbreaking and makes you sick to your stomach by what’s gone on. He’s damaged the community.”

Hayes says that, despite Snook’s guilty pleas, there are still many questions that need to be answered.

He is adding his voice to a group of citizens who say a formal inquiry will be needed to answer lingering questions about Snook and how he managed to abuse so many children for so long without being detected.

An inquiry of a similar nature has been conducted in New Brunswick before in the case of Karl Toft, who pleaded guilty in 1992 to 34 counts of abuse against boys in his care at the Kingsclear training school in Fredericton.

The New Brunswick government ordered a judicial inquiry in the case, but lawyer Norm Bosse, who represented hundreds of Toft’s victims, believe the government will be reluctant to call an inquiry in Snook’s case.

“I’d have to say there will have to be some pretty compelling evidence that comes out in sentencing hearings or in civil cases that would convince government that we’ve got to look at this,” says Bosse. “Because if it was, as in the Karl Toft inquiry, a systemic failure, failure of the system here, that needs to be looked at.”

Snook is scheduled to appear in Saint John provincial court on June 25 to set a date for sentencing, which is not expected until later in the summer or fall.

The Crown will seek victim impact statements before sentencing and the facts of the case are expected to be read in court on that date.

Victim impact statements are expected to reveal how the former youth ministry worker and foster parent befriended his victims.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Mike Cameron