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Anonymous complaint not serious enough to warrant emergency visit to Phoenix

By: Carol Sanders

Posted: 01/14/2013 1:01 PM | Comments: 0

Jacki Davidson says she didn't go to the home to check on Phoenix the night she took the call because there was no indication Phoenix was in any immediate danger. (JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

The child-welfare agency worker who took a call from someone saying Phoenix Sinclair's mother may be abusing and locking the child in a bedroom testified today that it was not an emergency.

Jacki Davidson told inquiry into the death of the little girl in care that she worked for Winnipeg Child and Family Services's after-hours unit when the call came in. It was from a foster parent, a third party reporting second-hand information that was not specific, Davision said.

"The person I was talking to hadn't seen any of it," she told the inquiry ordered by the province in 2011 to find out how five-year-old Phoenix slipped through Manitoba's child welfare safety net.

Phoenix was murdered by her mother, Samantha Kematch, and her mother's boyfreind in 2005 but her death wasn't discovered until 2006. Last week a foster parent whose grown foster child was a friend of Kematch testified about concerns for Phoenix's safety.

The foster child testified earlier to being scared of Kematch and didn't trust CFS and asked their foster parent to make the call about Phoenix. Neither the foster parent nor the foster child can be publicly identified.

Davidson said she took the call in March 2005 but tried to get more information. She didn't go to the home to check on Phoenix the night she took the call because there was no indication Phoenix was in any immediate danger, she said. The after-hours unit would not go to the home to check on a child unless it was an emergency, she said.

Davidson left the file for the crisis response unit to investigate the next day, she said. Her testimony continues this afternoon.

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