Flin Flon school worker faces charges

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This article was published 19/09/2013 (4493 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FLIN FLON — A 36-year-old female employee has been suspended from her school after she was accused of sexually assaulting an underage boy.

Kristina Richelle Lies, who has worked for three years as a parent-child co-ordinator, was arrested Tuesday and charged with sexual assault, sexual interference and sexual exploitation.

Police have not released the age of the victim. Ruth Betts Community School, where Lies works, is kindergarten to Grade 8.

RCMP Sgt. Line Karpish said police began an investigation Aug. 26 after being “contacted over concerns expressed that a teenage youth may have been sexually assaulted by an employee at a Flin Flon school.”

Flin Flon School Division Supt. Blaine Veitch said Wednesday he had to go to the Lies’ home and tell her she was suspended with pay.

“She’s support staff, not a classroom teacher” who works for the division on contract, Veitch said.

“She’s a community connector — she works in our child and family room; (it) engages the family in the school, the community school concept,” Veitch said.

Veitch said he does not know the name of the alleged victim, and police have told him there is no need for the division to offer support or intervention to any student.

“Those interventions are being put in place in the community,” he said.

Veitch said police contacted him at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday to advise him of the charges and to let him know they’d be interviewing the principal at Ruth Betts.

However, RCMP have not indicated plans to interview children in the division, he said. Police have not said they’ll be talking to any possible classmates of the alleged victim, Veitch said.

School counsellors “don’t even know his name at this point — I don’t know his name yet,” Veitch said.

Police have not given him any indication if anything inappropriate had happened on school division property, and he has no idea of the age of the alleged victim or even where that boy goes to school. Veitch had no involvement in the police investigation.

“I just feel sad this happened here,” he said.

Veitch said he did not plan to send home a letter to Ruth Betts Community School parents.

“I’m not sure what I could add at this point,” he said.

Lies will be in Flin Flon provincial court Nov. 7.

The division will have someone from the substitute list taking over her position by Monday, said Veitch, who was consulting with the Manitoba School Boards Association labour staff Wednesday between fielding a flurry of media calls.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca