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More Baynes
August 25, 2010 permalink
The Bayne family will expand by one more child near the end of the year.
Zabeth Bayne. Paul and I are overjoyed to announce to everyone of our friends here that we are three months into expecting the fourth member of our family. We pray you will share our joy with this news and also share with us the need for prayer that God restore our family into the loving unit it is.
Source: Facebook, August 13 at 11:59pm
The Baynes finished their case to the trial court on Friday, August 13. Until that time they had kept news of the pregnancy among their own team, but somehow, the MCFD lawyer found out about it. Members of the MCFD legal team are licking their chops at the prospect of yet another child for their menagerie. Here is a report from Zabeth on the last day, and three blog entries by Ron Unruh.
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Hi There,
Just a short note to let you know that our side of the case is now done and the Ministry is to make their closing arguments in the near future. No date has yet been found.
Also Paul and I are expecting our fourth child and the Ministry has received this information through unauthorized access to our email. I had emailed the news of our pregnancy to our lawyer, Ray Ferris, Ron Unruh, Mr. Cheung and my father. It was with agreed to keep confidence. Finn Jensen ended my cross examination with inquiring as to my pregnancy, which I had not disclosed. It is their intention to remove at birth, if the courts grant a CCO. They used this to insinuate that I would be unable to handle four children though not based on any previous evidence to this effect in our history of parenting. Merely a suggestion to the court. They would wish to expand the scope of the CCO to include our unborn child.
Ron Unruh has posted further details to this on his blog.
Thank you
Zabeth Bayne
Source: email from Zabeth Bayne
IT'S NOT OVER 'TIL IT'S OVER / Part 279 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/
Most of us were trusting that today would be the conclusion of this hearing. It isn't. There is a degree of closure yet there is some ongoing business. I will explain.
Mommy and Daddy and their threeAt noon, counsel for the defense, Doug Christie indicated that he was ready to make his final summation. That caught the Judge and Jensen off guard. The Judge would willingly entertain that direction to the day, but Jensen immediately indicated that he was not ready with a final submission. Christie estimated that he would require an hour of time in the afternoon. Judge Crabtree said he would consider this over the lunch break.
When we reconvened at 1:30 PM after some procedural chit-chat, the Judge invited Christie to provide his summation. It was with the understanding that Jensen could not and would not reply to that summation today. It was clear in his remarks and I had certainly seen in his body language that Christie has had enough. He cannot continue to give time to this case. His time and expertise have been a gift to a couple who have lost all material possessions to get their children back.
Christie did his thing, restating the emptiness of the Ministry's case. This is purely a medical matter, injuries sustained to an infant. No evidence, no confession to point to willful inflicted harm by one or both of the parents which is the only reason you take the children away from parents. All the Ministry has is a diagnostic opinion by a child protection doctor identifying the baby's injuries as shaken baby induced when in fact there is no evidence that these injuries were the result of an act of violence. In fact it was later acknowledged by this doctor as impact related which of course renders it consistent with the explanation provided by the Baynes of an accident in the home. He recited once again the intentional smears concerning Paul's childhood, all of which was fictitious and the insidious nature of the cross examination throughout the morning, culminating in the most disgusting display of juvenile law practice by Jensen and points to something even more clandestine and sinister.
So where does that leave the Bayne children? They cannot come home yet. No, now a court time must be found in Jensen's and Crabtree's schedules, a court room, and Jensen indicated he needs the better part of one day to speak to Christie's one hour summation. That meeting won't happen until mid September. It really doesn't matter how long Jensen takes does it? The Baynes do not need to attend this but a transcript will be sent to the Baynes so that Christie can respond to that and finally Crabtree must review all the evidence and at last make a ruling. It could be the end of 2010 by the time a verdict is given.
Meanwhile three little children, two of whom because of prematurity have developmental challenges yet all three are being placed into age appropriate public school programs come September.
More tomorrow.
ADJOURNED/ Part 280 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/
At precisely 9:30 AM Friday August 13th, 2010, a clerk entered the court room with the customary words, “all rise.” In unison we stood in deference to Judge Thomas Crabtree who came to his desk carrying his laptop. On that laptop he contains his personal notes typed as he listens through endless hours. Judge Crabtree has expressed earlier that he wanted this hearing to conclude Friday.
It's like climbing a mountainAlready seated in the witness box, Zabeth Bayne for the fourth day affirmed to tell the truth and counsel Finn Jensen immediately continued with his cross examination. Questions spewed effortlessly as he elicited responses by which he intended to arrive at a suggestion that Baynes had nothing about which to complain because the Ministry had provided the very same kind of good care for the children that the Baynes themselves would have chosen to provide if the Ministry was not involved. This tactic was employed repeatedly. Here's an example of this self-serving cross examination suited for you this morning. While Bethany was in hospital, the two boys required someone to care for them, right? Who better than family to care for the boys, correct? Zabeth's parents can satisfactory care for the boys, isn't that so? Zabeth and Paul trust their boys to the grandparents, don't they? Is this what Zabeth would choose for her boys so that she can be free to go the hospital? Of course it is, wouldn't you agree? Well, isn't that precisely what MCFD did for Paul and Zabeth? MCFD thought of the best interests of the children and put the family first didn't it?
Irritation, annoyance, frustration, aggravation is what attending Bayne supporters feel as they observe Zabeth being compelled to pluck at her memory for three years old details covered with mountains of disappointment and sorrow. On this day she answered clearly and confidently when she could, faltering only when Jensen made one of his regular suggestions to her that intimated she was dishonest or confused or purposely not recalling a detail or hiding the truth. Counsel Doug Christie struggled impatiently to hold back objections to countless moments when he felt Jensen crossed a line, knowing that each objection would lead to lengthy debate which would consume hours in total. Child protection lawyers like nothing more than to extend a trial because it wears on the defendants and exhausts their resources and makes the lawyers wealthy.
In 2009 the media contacted the Baynes to invite an interview. That interview was recorded and scheduled for airing within days. Soon after that a 2008 mediation meeting was held in which the Baynes were told that the boys would be returned. Then the televised interview was shown and MCFD was embarrassed and called this a breach of trust. Christie called it vengeful and retaliatory that MCFD immediately decided not to return the boys. Jensen alleged that communication of this change was given to Zabeth but that she chose to ignore or not to believe it. She testified that this communication was never clear to her when she planned her son's birthday party. Her lasting impression was that SW Loren Humeny had conveyed the children would be returned. Jensen suggested that her shock and surprise was feigned when MCFD workers arrived at the birthday party to remove the boys. It appeared that occasionally Jensen showed impatience with Zabeth's memory lapses or her seeming unwillingness to concede to his suggestions.
Well here's the point. MCFD has no evidence that either parent harmed their own infant daughter. They needed a confession. Jensen needed to catch her somehow on an apparent contradiction out of which she could not extract herself. That did not happen.
The most reprehensible tactic that Jensen used happened near the conclusion of the morning. Through a series of questions he sought to display that Zabeth and Paul could not meet all of the challenging needs of all three of their children if and when they were returned to them. Then he deftly zinged her with a couple of questions to evoke responses of information that was so personal and should have remained absolutely confidential. The room gasped.
Soon after with a suddenness that astonished Judge Crabtree as well as Jensen, Doug Christie standing tall and convincingly serious, announced, “I am ready to make my final submission.” Of course the judge would have to rule that this was permissible since Jensen was not finished his denunciation and should do his summation first. Jensen said he was not prepared to do summation. Yet he has had many months to be ready and knew this day was coming and that it wasn't going to spill over unless of course he said something like this. And the judge not wishing to created any fodder for an appeal acceded to this reason. Christie did his summation in the afternoon. Read yesterday's update for further details.
SURPRISE REVEALED Part 281 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/
Well Paul and Zabeth have made it official now. They are expecting their fourth child. Zabeth is into her third month of pregnancy. She announced it on her Facebook page.
They had no other option but to go public now. This is the private and confidential information extracted under cross examination to which I discreetly referred in the last two posts. Someone with that private information, that secret, disclosed it mistakenly or intentionally. This is the news to which Finn Jensen became privy and used during his cross examination. He led Zabeth through a series of easily affirmed statements that sounded like this, “You will agree that your two youngest children have many challenges? Boy B is developmentally behind and will require numerous therapies to assist him?” To these Zabeth responded by reciting a list of needs of which she is fully cognizant. Then he mentioned BabyGirl B and her deficit in movement and speech and Zabeth again responded with knowing affirmations. With obvious dubious tone, Jensen asked her whether she could sincerely believes that if the children were returned, Paul and Zabeth could look after them and meet all these needs. Then he asked her whether she would try to expand her family. When I heard that I knew exactly where he was going. She responded, “When Paul and I were married it was our intention to have a large family. We love children and we love our children and we want to nurture them.” Then with soft voice almost audible only to Zabeth to whom he was near, Jensen asked “Are you pregnant now?” She strongly and emotionally replied “Yes.” He whispered “how far along are you?” She said “two months,” and dissolved in tears. The room gasped. THE NEWS WAS OUT. The room gasped not because of the news but the insidious manner in which the news was broken. Christie strongly objected to this invasion of privacy.
Well Jensen's tactic was to infer that they cannot possibly look after three children when they have another one coming along. THAT IS NOT EVEN WHAT THIS TRIAL IS ABOUT. THAT'S NONE OF HIS BUSINESS. This is about whether either parent harmed their only daughter. They did not. This is about MCFD's failure to provide evidence for Jensen. The Baynes would be caring for their children if they had not been removed. They were diligently caring for the children before the removal. They would have made the adjustments that all good parents make when another child comes along. This case is not about whether they can care. It is about a Ministry taking three children, two of them certainly without cause, and the other for reason of suspicion minus evidence and therefore with no substantive reason for which to be granted continuing care.
Shortly after this, in what seemed like a dramatic moment, Christie announced to the Judge that he was ready to make his final submission. He and the Baynes wanted this done. This was absolutely enough. As far as Christie was concerned the MCFD had proven nothing but how vengeful and malicious it could be using innuendo and smear and grossly distorted risk assessment statements and then this unnecessary, insidious attack upon an expectant mother, knowing she was pregnant and putting the baby at risk because she could lose the baby.
Christie said that MCFD and Jensen have suggested that the Baynes are without strength and are isolated. Bayne supporters filled one entire side of the room and surrounded the MCFD employees on the other. Then Christie turned around to look at the supporters and asked the Judge (paraphrased), “Does this look like they are isolated?" He continued. "It is suggested that the Baynes do not have the necessary network of assistance to care for their children. How many of these people will do all that they can to help Paul and Zabeth care for their children?" A room of supporters stood to their feet in an emotional demonstration of solidarity.
Be sure to read the previous two posts which retell other aspects of the closing of the court case.
Source: Ron Unruh blog, August 13, 14 and 15, 2010
