Negligence charge against father dropped
Allegation of failure to get timely medical care for daughter withdrawn against Fredericton man, though he admits to violating order to have no contact with his kids
Warning: This story includes graphic descriptions of extreme child abuse.
A Fredericton man accused of failing to get medical care for his daughter after long-term abuse at the hands of his wife saw that charge withdrawn in court this week.
The 52-year-old defendant was scheduled to stand trial in the fall on two criminal charges: failing to provide the necessaries of life to his daughter and thereby causing her bodily harm July 21, 2022, and violating a police undertaking to have no contact with his six children between July 30 and 31, 2022.
There’s a court-ordered publication ban in place protecting the identities of the man’s children, so the Fredericton Independent isn’t naming him either so as to comply with the order.
The man was back in Fredericton provincial court Tuesday, though.
Prosecutor Brett Stanford said the Crown was withdrawing the negligence charge, and defence lawyer Dustin Caissie then said his client was changing his plea to guilty on the count of breaching the no-contact condition.
The defence asked for a pre-sentence report.
Judge Cameron Gunn ordered its preparation and scheduled the man’s sentencing hearing for Nov. 9.
The charges against the man flowed from a criminal investigation into horrific child abuse perpetrated by his spouse, which was discovered by the Fredericton Police Force last summer.
The 34-year-old woman - whose name is being withheld to protect her children’s identities as well - pleaded guilty earlier this year charges of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon (a metal rod), both between June 24 and July 21, 2022, on her then-seven-year-old daughter, and to confining that girl unlawfully and failing to provide the necessaries of life (medical care) for her between Jan. 1 and July 21, 2022.
The woman also admitted to lesser assaults on two of her other children between Jan. 1 and July 21, 2022.
She was sentenced to 9½ years in prison for those crimes June 28, less credit for the time she spent on remand since her arrest last summer.
A shocking level of abuse
In an agreed statement of facts filed with the court earlier this year, the mother admitted to abusing three of her children - two of them by slapping them on isolated occasions, but one of them severely and continually.
She beat one daughter, deprived her of food, confined her to her bedroom, deprived her of bathroom privileges, forced her to sleep in a dilapidated bed designed to constrict her, burned her with hot metal rods and stomped on her head so hard and so often that the child ear became infected and deformed.
Court heard the woman inexplicably singled out the one girl and started abusing her when she was only five years old.
The children’s father was working long hours at several jobs outside the home, and had little contact with the children.
The abuse stopped when the father called police the night of July 21, 2022, to report his wife “was crazy” and was seriously harming his seven-year-old daughter.
Officers were shocked at the girl’s condition and at the state of her bedroom, which stank of urine, court heard. The kids revealed their mother was treating the one child horribly, and they reported the lesser assaults as well.
The family was on the radar of child-protection workers with the Department of Social Development for several years, and the children were removed from the parents’ care for a few months, but were returned to the mother and father despite several substantiated reports of abuse on the file.
In June 2022, one social worker examined the girl who’d been subjected to the long-term, extreme physical abuse, but that social worker reported finding no signs of injury, harm or neglect.
However, doctors who examined the girl the night of July 21, 2022, reported the child was covered in bruises and other marks, was malnourished, and had clearly been subjected to abuse and neglect for some time.
The case has renewed criticisms of the province’s child-protection framework, which has come under fire repeatedly in the past.
New Brunswick Child and Youth Advocate Kelly Lamrock is reviewing the case and is expected to release a report later this year on what went wrong.
The woman’s legal counsel has filed a notice seeking leave to appeal her sentence because the sentencing judge failed to give notice that she planned to impose a prison term longer than the one sought by the prosecution in the case.
The New Brunswick Court of Appeal has yet to schedule a hearing to determine if leave will be granted to appeal the sentence.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.
You can't convince me that her "supposedly" father DID NOT see the extreme abuse going on!! Lots of questions!!
Lots of blame to go around.