help

collapse

Press one of the expand buttons to see the full text of an article. Later press collapse to revert to the original form. The buttons below expand or collapse all articles.

expand

collapse

Nastygram

April 12, 2012 permalink

The District School Board Ontario North East, through their lawyer has asked us to make corrections to an article copied from Canada Court Watch.

expand

collapse

Hicks Morley logo
HUMAN RESOURCES
LAW AND ADVOCACY

Toronto

Waterloo

London

Kingston

Ottawa

Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP
77 King St. W., 39th Floor, Box 371, TD Centre
Toronto, ON M5K 1K8
Tel: 416.362.1011
Fax: 416.362.9680

LAlLA KARIMI HENDRY
laila-karimihendry@hicksmorley.com
Direct: 416.864.7282
Cell: 416.473.6428

File No. 2668-209

April 11, 2012

HAND DELIVERED AND E-MAIL (rtmq@fixcas.com)

Dufferin VOCA- Voices of Children Alliance
c/o Robert T. McQuaid
558 Martin Road
Mattawa, Ontario
POH 1VO

Dear Mr. McQuaid:

Re: Notice of Libel Action and Request for Takedown

We are counsel for the District School Board Ontario North East (the "Board") in this matter.

We are writing to request that Dufferin VOCA- Voices of Children Alliance ("VOCA") immediately take down a posting and letter written by Richard and Henrietta Green that is currently posted on their website that defames the Board and its employee, Principal Sharon Bowes. Principal Bowes is the current principal of the Haileybury Public School, which is under the Board's jurisdiction.

We are also writing to serve you with a notice of intended action in defamation in accordance with section 5 of the Libel and Slander Act.

The letter at issue is dated March 24, 2012 and was posted on a website that is hosted by VOCA at the <www.fixcas.com> domain on or about March 28, 2012. The posting is entitled, "School Asked to Exclude CAS" and copies an article posted on <http://canadacourtwatch.com/content/parents-northern-ontario-get-ready-take-school-board-regarding-childrens-aid-society>.

The following words appear at <http://fixcas.com/cgi-bin/go.py?2012b.Green> (a printout of which is enclosed):

  1. "Parents Richard and Henrietta Green have sent a letter to their school board asking them to exclude Timiskaming children's aid workers from their school. The request came after their son was traumatized by a CAS worker interviewing him at school, and leaving him fearful that he would be removed from his parents."

    This statement is untrue. Neither the Board nor Principal Bowes received this letter. Rather, the letter came to their attention from Canada Court Watch's website and VOCA's website.

  2. "A number of parents in District School Board 1 Ontario North East have reported problems with the Children's Aid Society going into the school to interrogate and to terrify children."

    This statement is untrue. The Board has not received any complaints from parents in this regard, except from Richard and Henrietta Green.

  3. "A letter has been sent to the school board as the first salvo by local parents to get CAS out of the schools and to stop harassing their children."

    This statement is untrue. Neither the Board nor Principal Bowes received this letter. Rather, the letter came to their attention from Canada Court Watch's website and VOCA's website.

  4. "Canada Court Watch has downloaded and reviewed the official school board policy and has found that it violates the law."

    This statement is untrue. All of the Board's policies are in compliance with applicable laws. In any event, Canada Court Watch's terms and conditions of use specifically state that it does not provide legal advice, and yet it purports to advise the public that one of the Board's unspecified policies is unlawful.

At the end of the posting, VOCA posted a letter to the Board written by Richard and Henrietta Green, which was not actually sent to the Board or Principal Bowes, but rather was simply posted online at <www.canadacourtwatch.com/files/all/2012Mar24-RichardGreenToSchoolBoard.pdf>, a link to which is posted at <http://fixcas.com/cgi-bin/go.py?2012b.Green>. This letter includes the following words:

The whole letter has been removed from the fixcas site. To avoid leaving more objectionable material on the web, Mrs Hendry's paragraphs making specific objections to the letter are omitted.

The italicized segments of the above-noted words are untrue and defamatory on their face. The posting and letter published by Richard and Henrietta Green, Canada Court Watch, the National Association for Public and Private Accountability and VOCA together, infer that:

  • The Board has perpetrated child abuse and poses a safety risk to public school students
  • The Board's policies are unlawful
  • The Board ignores complaints brought forward by parents
  • Principal Bowes terrorizes children, and is otherwise hostile and of questionable character
  • Principal Bowes is incompetent and unfit to fulfill the duties of a principal

These claims are defamatory, untrue and not otherwise defensible at law. They go to the core of Principal Bowes' professional reputation and do serious damage to the Board's interest in providing its students and employees with a safe and harassment free environment.

VOCA has the means to prevent further harm to the Board and Principal Bowes by taking down the impugned websites. We request that VOCA immediately disable and not re-post the contents of the following websites on its website, and confirm that such action has been taken:

  • <http://www.canadacourtwatch.com/content/parents-northern-ontario-get-ready-take-school-board-regarding-childrens-aid-society>;
  • <www.canadacourtwatch.com/files/all/2012Mar24-RichardGreenToSchoolBoard.pdf>; and
  • <http://fixcas.com/cgi-bin/go.py?2012b.Green>.

If you require any further information, please feel free to contact me.

Yours very truly,

Laila Karimi Hendry

LKH/
En c.

c: Linda Knight, Director of Education

Source: Email/courier from Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP, Toronto

Fixcas has responded to this letter by posting corrections in the original article School Asked to Exclude CAS and by deleting our local copy of the full Canada Court Watch letter. As of this posting, the full letter is still available on the Canada Court Watch website.

We close with a sentence in the Canada Court Watch letter that Mrs Hendry claims is untrue: In addition, XX XXXXX told me that the Board had lots of lawyers to fight us on this issue. No further comment.

Addendum: Here is a contemporary letter to silence a critic. The bully lawyer cannot even spell the name Pentlope correctly.

expand

collapse

Hicks Morley logo
HUMAN RESOURCES
LAW AND ADVOCACY

Toronto

Waterloo

London

Kingston

Ottawa

Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP
77 King St. W., 39th Floor, Box 371, TD Centre
Toronto, ON M5K 1K8
Tel: 416.362.1011
Fax: 416.362.9680

LAlLA KARIMI HENDRY
laila-karimihendry@hicksmorley.com
Direct: 416.864.7282
Cell: 416.473.6428

File No. 2668-210
April 17,2012

HAND DELIVERED

Pentelope Millen
L3 C3 Cane Twp RR2
Kenabeek, ON
P0J 1M0

Dear Ms. Millen:

Re: Sharon Bowes

We are counsel for the District School Board Ontario North East (the "Board"), Principal Sharon Bowes and Ms. Van Amelsfoort.

We are writing to demand that you cease and desist from making defamatory statements about the District School Board Ontario North East (the "Board"), Principal Sharon Bowes, Ms. Van Amelsfoort, and any other employees of the Board.

It has recently come to our attention that you have been contacting various parents of children who attend schools under the Board's jurisdiction and have made the following untrue statements:

  1. Principal Bowes threw a kid up against a brick wall around March break. She is currently under investigation for this incident.
  2. Principal Bowes threw a kid up against a brick wall in Englehart two years ago. She was charged for this incident.
  3. Ms. Van Amelsfoort has left finger marks on approximately six children's arms as if she is holding them too tight.
  4. Ms. Van Amelsfoort is mean, rude, verbally abusive and uses inappropriate language in the classroom.
  5. Ms. Van Amelsfoort has spanked six students so hard that she left hand prints on their bums.
  6. You are assisting parents in 19 cases against Ms. Bowes.
  7. The Board is under investigation.

In each of the statements you have made to members of the public. Principal Bowes, Ms. Van Amelsfoort and the Board are easily identifiable by use of the name and context. The statements above defame Principal Bowes and Ms. Van Amelsfoort based on their literal meaning. They also infer that:

  • Principal Bowes and Ms. Van Amelsfoort hurt children, and are otherwise hostile and of questionable character
  • Principal Bowes is unfit to fulfill the duties of a principal
  • Ms. Van Amelsfoort is unfit to fulfill the duties of a teacher
  • The Board poses a safety risk to public school students

These claims are defamatory, untrue and not otherwise defensible at law. They go to the core of Principal Bowes and Ms. Van Amelsfoort's professional reputations and do serious damage to same as well as the Board's interest in providing its students and employees with a safe and harassment free environment

We demand that you refrain from making any further public defamatory statements with respect to the Board, Principal Bowes, Ms. Van Amelsfoort or any of its employees, failing which the Board will pursue all legal remedies available to it. We trust that this will not be necessary.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me.

Yours very truly,

Laila Karimi Hendry signature

Laila Karimi Hendry

LKH/

c: Linda Knight, Director of Education

The Art of Intimidation

sequential