Parents sentenced to house arrest in death of toddler who died in care of nine-year-old sister

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This article was published 27/02/2024 (647 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg woman whose two-year-old son died accidentally at home while she and her husband were out playing bingo said she knew their babysitter hadn’t shown up, but remained at the bingo hall because she “wanted to see if she could win,” a court has heard.

The 34-year-old woman and her 54-year-old husband each pleaded guilty to one count of failing to provide the necessaries of life and were sentenced earlier this month to two years house arrest. The couple’s sentence was jointly recommended by Crown and defence lawyers, who described the grief-stricken parents as additional victims in their son’s July 6, 2022 death.

Under terms of a court-ordered publication ban, the couple cannot be named, as it would identify their son.

The maximum sentence for failing to provide the necessaries of life is five years in prison. There is no mandatory minimum sentence.

“The circumstances of this offence are not the usual set of facts one sees in an offence of this kind,” Crown attorney Dayna Queau-Guzzi told provincial court Judge Denis Guénette at a sentencing hearing earlier this month. “This case was truly challenging.”

According to an agreed statement of facts provided to court, the couple left their West End home to play bingo at about 5 p.m., leaving their nine-year-old daughter to care for two younger sisters and her two-year-old brother. A 16-year-old daughter was staying out of town at the time.

Neither parent had a cellphone and they did not provide their daughter with a number where she could reach them.

The mother called her daughter around 7 p.m. and was told “everything was fine,” said the agreed statement of facts.

At 9:30 p.m., the parents had still not returned home when the girl called 911 crying, telling an operator she had returned from the bathroom to find her brother not breathing.

Paramedics arrived minutes later and found the boy on his back on the living-room floor and the nine-year-old girl “extremely distraught and unable to provide much information.”

The boy was taken to Health Sciences Centre in critical condition and died a short time later.

The parents returned home at about 10:30 p.m. and learned from a police officer their son had died. Two hours later, the nine-year-old girl and her sisters were turned over to Child and Family Services.

Interviewed that night by police, the nine-year-old said prior to discovering her brother not breathing, one of her sisters had tripped him, hurting his neck.

An autopsy conducted the following day determined the boy had died as the result of strangulation. Police obtained a search warrant for the home and found a bloody towel in the laundry and a dog leash in the garbage.

“The circumstances of this offence are not the usual set of facts one sees in an offence of this kind.”–Crown attorney Dayna Queau-Guzzi

Police re-interviewed the nine-year-old, who admitted her younger sister had put the leash around her brother’s neck and pulled him around with it, choking him. The girl said she removed the leash, washed it and threw it in the garbage before calling 911.

According to a pre-sentence report completed after the agreed statement of facts, the boy’s mother said she and her husband tried to arrange for a babysitter that night, “but did not confirm her attendance” before leaving for bingo, Queau-Guzzi told court.

“She called at roughly 8:30 p.m. and she learned definitively at that time the babysitter never showed up,” Queau-Guzzi said.

According to the pre-sentence report, the woman cried as she told a probation officer she remained at bingo because she was “selfish” and “wanted to see if she could win.”

Court heard Child and Family Services had previously opened a file with the parents in June 2021 after their two youngest daughters were seen wandering the street in the early morning, barely dressed. CFS last visited the couple in September 2021 and closed the file shortly before their son’s death.

The parents, who are Indigenous, had upbringings marked by poverty, substance abuse, sexual abuse and neglect.

The mother, now sober for a decade, “had a childhood rife with trauma and abuse by numerous people in positions of trust,” said her lawyer Alexandra Johnson.

“She has suffered tremendous trauma throughout her life and has worked at every step to overcome that trauma.”

The father had his first drink with his parents when he was six or seven and struggled with alcohol for decades, but is now 13 months sober, court was told.

Since his son’s death, the man has stepped up involvement with his church, volunteering as a facilitator with its reconciliation program.

The man was “wracked with guilt,” but instead of “wallowing in self-pity… he has taken a number of steps to be a better man,” said his lawyer Greg Hawrysh.

Since their son’s death, the couple has undergone extensive counselling and programming to become better parents and has worked closely with CFS to one day reunify their family, Queau-Guzzi said.

“This is a complex case; there are other children involved, so only time will tell if the parents have turned everything around after this terrible incident and if this was the appropriate outcome for this case.”–University of Manitoba assistant law professor Brandon Trask

Guénette agreed to the jointly recommended sentence, and urged the couple to continue “grieving together and working together.”

“As long as you continue to do that you will be better off with each other,” Guénette said. “I encourage you in your healing as you move forward that you are a strong support for each other.”

The couple’s sentence is to be followed by three years probation.

It “seems like a low sentence, and I expect most people in society would feel the same way,” said University of Manitoba assistant law professor Brandon Trask.

“There would have been, from my perspective, a clear pathway to conviction for criminal negligence causing death which, in theory, could have led to a maximum sentence of life, though realistically that sentence would not have been imposed in the circumstances,” he said.

A sentencing judge has limited leeway to depart from a joint recommendation, Trask said.

“It also seems like the focus was on the rehabilitative work the parents have been doing to improve their parenting skills, which would be an important consideration,” he said.

“But this is a complex case; there are other children involved, so only time will tell if the parents have turned everything around after this terrible incident and if this was the appropriate outcome for this case.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca