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CFS worker had quit university, inquiry told

Chief-Abigosis testified she studied full time

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 01/7/2013 1:07 PM | Comments: 0

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Delores Chief-Abigosis

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Phoenix Sinclair is shown in a family photo released by the Commission of Inquiry looking into her 2005 death. Commissioner Ted Hughes is urging all lawyers involved to let the hearings continue. (THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES)

The social worker who testified under oath at the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry earlier that she was busy as a full-time student while handling Phoenix's case had actually voluntarily withdrawn from her university classes by then, the inquiry heard today.

The university transcript of Delores Chief-Abigosis was entered as evidence at the inquiry into the death of the little girl in care by commission counsel today as the inquiry that began in September resumed after the Christmas holidays.

The former Winnipeg Child and Family Services social worker testified earliert she was assigned the file on Phoenix in the fall of 2000.

She had little contact with Phoenix or her family and quit CFS after Phoenix's baby sister Echo died in July 2001 of a respiratory illness.

Chief-Abigosis raised eyebrows at the inquiry earlier when she testified that she was living in Brokenhead First Nation and commuting to the University of Manitoba and her full-time CFS job in Winnipeg.

Commission counsel Sherri Walsh said today Chief-Abigosis's U of M transcript shows she withdrew voluntarily from all her course work in the 1999-2000 school year.

Phoenix was killed in 2005 when she was five years old by her mother and stepfather but her death wasn't discovered for a year.

The inquiry was ordered in 2011 by the province to determine how Phoenix fell through Manitoba's child-welfare safety net, what circumstances many have contributed to her death and why it took so long for her death to be discovered.

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