Phoenix Sinclair

I’ve been on holiday the past couple of weeks.

But I returned to work today and first stop was the Law Courts Building for the Phoenix Sinclair trial. I’m interested in it for the same reasons many of you are. A little girl was killed –tortured to death, it appears — and her body buried in a shallow grave in a dump. Her mother and step-father are charged with first degree murder in her death.

The details — which court reporter Mike McIntyre has bravely recorded for two weeks — are nauseating.

My interest is more specific. CFS had a file on Phoenix from birth. They opened and closed it with speed and enthusiasm. Despite their involvement — and a tip that led a CFS worker to her home shortly before her death — no one in the system ever determined that the five-year-old was allegedly being tortured, starved and beaten before being left to die in the basement of the family home.

Please read Mike’s blog for a passionate account of this case. Please accept my assurance that this child was failed, not only by the adults in her life but by a rule bound system that exists to protect kids exactly like Phoenix. A CFS worker, operating on a tip, came to the door of Phoenix Sinclair’s home. Her mother answered the door but refused to produce the five-year-old. Incredibly the worker, who also knew there was a newborn in the house, just left.

I can’t endure a daily dose of this trial and God bless Mike McIntyre that he can. But follow it along with us. I’ll be back in court when the CFS worker testifies. Until then, read Mike’s words, as painful as they are.

And say a prayer for a little girl who was tortured, starved, humiliated and finally buried in a garage dump. Ask yourselves what justice looks like to you. Ask yourselves what you’d say to Phoenix if you could.