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British MP John Hemming describes assessment centers for parents with a few curt but accurate words.

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Monday, April 07, 2008

Assessment centres

I visited an Assessment centre today. I don't think most people know what it is like to be in this environment.

Frankly the Assessment centres show an aspect of the system that needs to be seen to be believed. There is a form of assumption that parents are on the edge of murdering their children and are only held back by the fact that they have to phone the office every time they change a nappy.

Insane.

This is a systematic problem for which the politicians and judges are equally responsible.

posted by john ¶ 6:57 PM

Source: John Hemming's blog for April 7, 2008

Richard Wexler analyzes the latest press coverage initiated by the child protection bureaucracy, which he characterizes with the relatively polite epithet crap. You can't believe a word they say, in the privacy of the courtroom or the public forum of the press.

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April 4, 2008

THE CHILD ABUSE HYPE MACHINE STRIKES AGAIN

AP tells us:

About 1 in 50 infants in the U.S. have been neglected or abused, according to the first national study of the problem in that age group. Nearly a third of the victims were one week old or younger when the maltreatment was reported, government researchers said Thursday.

Bloomberg says:

About 1 in 43 infants in the U.S. suffers abuse or neglect each year, with the greatest risk among the newly born, according to the first U.S. study of maltreatment focused on babies.

And according to Reuters:

About one of every 43 U.S. infants is physically abused or neglected annually, and those babies are especially at risk in the first week of their lives, U.S. health officials said on Thursday.

The impression given in stories that crossed the wire late yesterday is of a comprehensive, scholarly study discovering massive abuse in hospital wards by sadistic parents beating and choking their helpless newborns. Of course, it’s released just in time for Child Abuse Prevention Month, in which the groups that hype the numbers seek more funding for their version of “prevention” – which generally involves touchy-feely “counseling” and “parent education” programs which make the helpers feel good while ignoring the real family problems that either cause – or are confused with – child maltreatment; namely concrete problems related to poverty.

There are just two problems with the claims in the wire service stories:

• There was no “study.”
• The “findings” are crap.

And while the problem of maltreatment of infants, like all child maltreatment, is serious and real, the hysteria-inducing non-study and the spoon-fed quotes from alleged experts apparently offered up by the federal Centers for Disease Control are only going to make the real problems worse. They’ll breed a spate of hand wringing editorials which, even as they preach “prevention,” feed the take-the-child-and-run mentality that dominates child welfare agencies. And they’ll drive some expectant mothers away from pre-natal care.

It’s the latest installment in a long, sad history of “statistics abuse” from America’s child welfare establishment, rooted in an ends-justify-the-means mentality that produces “advocacy numbers” that don’t hold up to scrutiny. (Time magazine condemned it as early as 1993, in a brief item called “Damned Lies and Statistics.”)

The non-study

Every year, the federal government puts out a book of statistics about child maltreatment. The book is a compilation of data from the states submitted to a database called NCANDS. (National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System). Unlike a second database used for adoption and foster care data, NCANDS is strictly voluntary –and states are free to define abuse, neglect, entries into care, and everything else, any way they darned well please. So, as I’ll discuss in more detail below, this is really no more than a National Report of Rumor and Innuendo.

Every year, this report includes a table breaking down alleged maltreatment by age. Until now, the youngest age bracket has been birth to age three. (Here, for example, is the chart from the 2005 report).

The big new “study” hyped by the wires in stories turning up in hundreds of news outlets consisted of a couple of extra keystrokes to get a computer to spit out the same data limited to birth to age one for 2006, the most recent year for which data are available.

The data are then presented in six paragraphs in a CDC publication. That’s the entire “study.”

The non-findings

But that didn’t stop the Child Abuse Hype Machine from swinging into action. Apparently CDC was glad to direct reporters to “experts” prepared to draw stunning conclusions from lousy data.

How lousy?

Well, let’s go back to how these figures are compiled:

• The figures are based on the number of “substantiated” allegations of maltreatment reported by each state. But “substantiated” is a misnomer. It does not mean that a court made a finding. It does not even mean that an expert evaluator weighed all sides. Rather, it means only that a (typically) undertrained, inexperienced caseworker took a guess and checked a box on a form.

  The only comprehensive study I know of (a real “study” not a few keystrokes) to second guess these decisions found that workers were two to six times more likely to wrongly “substantiate” an allegation than to wrongly label one unfounded.

• State laws in about half the states say the worker is supposed to check the “substantiated” box if she believes there is even slightly more evidence than not of maltreatment. In the other half, the standard is even lower. The worker is supposed to substantiate maltreatment as long as she thinks there is “credible evidence” or “some credible evidence” for it – even if there is more evidence of innocence.

Even at that, the so-called study acknowledged that overwhelmingly, these infants are not abused. Indeed, physical abuse was alleged in 13.2 percent of the cases. In 68.5 percent the allegation was “neglect.” The wire stories do mention this but are skimpy about the implications.

Neglect is typically defined as lack of adequate food, clothing and shelter. Lots of things can cause lack of adequate food, clothing and shelter, including all sorts of bad behavior by parents. But often, neglect is simply poverty.

Indeed, the only real surprise in the stories was that someone who, for decades, has represented the view of the “child saving” establishment, Prof. David Finkelhor of the University of New Hampshire, apparently has gotten fed up and can’t stomach the hype. According to the AP story:

“The neglect cases include situations in which medical professionals conclude that a child got sick or didn't correctly develop because parents didn't get recommended medical care. … Finkelhor said the cases might in part reflect families who don't have adequate health insurance.”

You think?

But Finkelhor was alone. Mostly the quotes suggested tens of thousands of infants whose lives were in danger because parents were at worst sadistic brutes or at best irresponsible and needed lots of “counseling” and “parent education.”

And what about all that stuff about the danger being worst during the first days of life? Does that mean that’s when stressed-out parents are most likely to lash out at the most innocent?

Actually, no. As the stories acknowledge – eventually – it’s strictly an artifice of how child maltreatment is reported.

Many state laws require medical professionals to report any parent whose newborn allegedly has even a trace of any illegal substance in her or his system. This can mean anything from the parent who used cocaine every day of her pregnancy to the parent who smoked a marijuana cigarette to ease the pain of labor – to simply a false positive on a drug test. Doesn’t matter. Professional medical judgment is not allowed.

And in some states, any such report is automatically classified as a “substantiated” case of neglect.

The result: a supposed epidemic of child maltreatment in the days after birth, that in fact, is simply a combination of doctors denied the right to use their medical judgment and state laws slapping the label “neglect” onto any case with a positive drug test.

And since more and more states are moving in this dreadful direction – requiring an automatic neglect finding based on one positive drug test – we know what will happen next: They’ll run the numbers next year, the numbers will be, artificially, higher, and the Hype Machine will proclaim that the problem of infant abuse “has gotten even worse.”

Yes, the various experts quoted pay lip service to prevention. But not the kind of prevention that would really help – like universal health insurance, drug treatment on demand and, especially, concrete help to ease the worst burdens of poverty. Instead, we get sanctimonious comments about counseling and parent education and teaching parents to cope with stress. (Actually easing the stress by improving housing or helping a family find day care? No thanks. Apparently that’s beneath the dignity of a true “professional.”)

And what impact is all the hype about those drug tests (including a gratuitous quote in the AP story suggesting – wrongly - that the tests revealed “newborn drug addiction”) likely to have on pregnant women who really do have drug problems? It’s bound to drive more of them into hiding and away from prenatal care – which is likely to be far more harmful to the children than the drug use itself.

In fact, there is some real news in the latest federal figures, but not the kind the Child Abuse Hype Machine wants to focus on:

The overall rate of substantiated child abuse is actually unchanged from 2005 – and significantly lower than it’s been in almost every year since 1990.

But you can’t get more money for your phony prevention program with figures like that.

The response to this from the child welfare establishment will be two-fold: First the accusation that anyone who doesn’t take their hype at face value is “minimizing” the problem and, essentially, doesn’t care if infants are beaten and tortured. On the contrary – after more than 30 years of following this issue, one thing I know for sure is that statistics abuse winds up increasing harm to children, not curbing it.

Second is the “even one…” argument. As in, “if even one infant is abused it’s one too many so why ‘quibble’ over numbers?”

Well yes, even one is one too many. But if the real numbers don’t matter, there’s no need to hype them.

Actually, the real numbers matter a lot. Because the first step toward honest solutions is honest numbers.

Source: Richard Wexler's blog for April 4, 2008

The Toronto Star features a family falsely accused by expert evidence from pathologist Dr Charles Smith. A twelve-year-old girl was babysitting when an accidental fall killed toddler Amber. Dr Smith claimed it was a shaken baby case. The accused girl's father was a professional chemist and used his own technical expertise to study medical literature on shaken baby. He spent two years gathering evidence at a cost of $150 thousand. His efforts saved his daughter, but left the family bankrupt.

As far as we know, shaken baby has been disproved in every case in which the defense has had adequate resources, but still many parents are in jail, and many more children are in foster or adoptive homes, on this now discredited theory.

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Father credited for acquittal in baby's death

ADRIAN WYLD/CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO Pathologist Dr. Charles Smith arrives with his legal team at the Goudge inquiry in Toronto on Jan. 28, 2008.

Dad dove into research on Shaken Baby Syndrome, sold house to prove disgraced pathologist wrong

April 04, 2008, Theresa Boyle, staff reporter

He knew it had to be a mistake.

His 12-year-old daughter was charged with manslaughter, accused of causing the death of a toddler she was babysitting. A renowned pathologist, Dr. Charles Smith, had said it was a case of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

The father knew better. His daughter was a straight-A Grade 6 student whose biggest concerns at the time – it was December 1988 – were singing competitions and basketball games. "I told her not to worry, I would straighten this out. They've made a mistake."

A chemist at a mining company, he put his scientific know-how to work for the next two years, determined to prove Smith wrong and clear his daughter. He committed most lunch hours, evenings and weekends to reading scientific journals on arcane subjects such as neuropathology and biomechanics, delving deep into the field of infant head injuries.

The efforts of the father would pay off enormously. His daughter was acquitted and the case became one of 20 botched by Smith and others that were examined at a public inquiry in which final arguments wrapped up this week in Toronto.

But the financial cost was heavy for the father – known only as DM at the inquiry because of a publication ban. The family remortgaged their house twice, eventually selling it. And they cashed in all their RRSPs. In all, $150,000 was spent on flying experts to Timmins, putting them up in hotels and paying for some of them to review the case.

The family's ordeal started in the summer of 1988 when the daughter, SM, got a job babysitting a 16-month-old neighbour, Amber, three days a week. Amber's parents had carefully checked SM's background and felt they could trust her with their daughter. She had taken the Red Cross babysitting course, was a good student, a little league baseball player and had "great reviews" from other families whose children she had babysat.

Tragedy struck on July 28. After awakening from a nap, Amber got out of SM's grasp and tumbled down the stairs, striking her head. She suffered a fatal brain injury, dying two days later at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.

Initially, a coroner determined the toddler had died of an accidental head injury. But after the child was buried, officials from Sick Kids, including Smith, requested an exhumation, suspecting abuse.

Smith did an autopsy and determined Amber died of Shaken Baby Syndrome. She had symptoms typically associated with the syndrome, including bleeding on the surface of the brain, brain swelling and retinal hemorrhages. But Smith discounted a bruise on Amber's forehead, wrongly determining it predated the accident. It was a critical error. Experts who later reviewed the case said it was evidence that the child had, indeed, died from striking her head.

On Dec. 15, SM and her parents were asked to come down to the police station. They piled into DM's Ford F-150 SuperCab half-ton, thinking perhaps that they were needed to help tie up some loose ends in the case.

Instead, they were met by a detective who formally charged SM with manslaughter. DM remembers the officer saying it was the hardest thing he ever had to do in his life.

"We were just dumbfounded, totally dumbfounded," DM remembers.

He recalls how vulnerable his daughter appeared. Bundled in her winter jacket, with her long blond hair tied back in a ponytail, the tall pretty girl protested her innocence.

"I didn't kill anybody. I loved that baby," she insisted.

"They put us in another room," the father recalls. "I don't think she even knew what that meant – being charged with manslaughter. She was 12 years old. She probably didn't really understand how serious that was."

DM's initial panic turned to anger. So he channelled his emotions into protecting his daughter, turning to what he knew best: science and research. At the time he was doing metallurgical analysis for Falconbridge Mining, now Xstrata. But during every break, he turned his attention to the science of infant head injuries.

"It certainly helped, working in the field I was in. That's all I was doing was research, and I knew you couldn't be 100 per cent certain of any theory. This one sounded like it was flawed," he says of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

So he set about finding out everything he could about the syndrome, infant head injuries and the biomechanics of falls. He read academic journals and called experts from around the world.

"I wanted to know how you could distinguish a shaking injury from an injury caused by a fall. Right off the bat I knew this was a biomechanical problem," he says.

Little did DM know that he had stumbled upon a major scientific quandary, one that still bedevils scientists today. Indeed, one of the recommendations coming out of the inquiry is for a review of old shaken-baby deaths. That's because cases once viewed as being caused by the syndrome are today often attributed to natural causes.

One of the papers he found was published in the Journal of Neurosurgery in 1987. The seminal study, which was led by Ann-Christine Duhaime from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, poked holes in the theory of Shaken Baby Syndrome. She and her colleagues argued that a blunt impact was necessary to cause such injuries.

The theory squared with DM's take on what happened to Amber – that the toddler struck her head during the accidental fall, acquiring a fatal brain injury.

DM tracked down the author and convinced her to take a look at the case and ultimately to travel to Timmins to testify on his daughter's behalf.

In the end, DM found 19 experts around the world whose studies and theories supported his daughter. He paid for nine of them – including neuropathologists, biomechanics experts and pediatricians specializing in child abuse – to fly to Timmins for the trial. Written opinions from others were provided to the court.

The family went bankrupt to cover the costs of SM's defence.

The trial took place over a period of almost two years, a difficult time for the family. SM's marks in school, normally high, dropped. The usually upbeat girl became despondent. Even though she was protected under the Young Offenders Act, Timmins isn't that big and residents were well aware of the identity of the girl at the centre of the trial. Some judged her harshly. Amber's parents still lived across the road.

By the time SM took the stand, she was 14. DM remembers going into the courtroom feeling worried for her, but he emerged feeling proud.

"The judge asked her if she had anything to say. She pointed to all the people behind the Crown – the police and Amber's family – and reminded them: `You believed me before Dr. Smith's shaking theory came out. I loved Amber and I'm innocent.'"

In his written decision acquitting SM, Justice Patrick Dunn said the defence's nine experts succeeded in convincing him that a child could sustain a serious head injury from a short fall.

"When first presented, the Crown's case appeared quite plausible. But after the evidence of the defence experts, it is riddled with reasonable doubts," he wrote.

The family's lawyer, now a judge, gave much credit for the victory to DM. In his 1995 swearing-in ceremony to the Ontario Court of Justice, Gilles Renaud gave a speech in which he lauded DM.

"No courtroom lawyer has ever enjoyed a better assistant than I did," he said.

The Dunn decision has been a key piece of evidence at the current inquiry, often cited by counsel for the commission and parties with standing. It marked the first time Smith and the Hospital for Sick Children were publicly rebuked for their work on the 20 cases under question.

"The case proved that the people at Sick Kids, particularly Dr. Smith, didn't seem to be aware of groundbreaking research," remarks Peter Wardle, lawyer for this family and others at the inquiry.

DM is now chief chemist at Xstrata, running the lab in which he once worked as a researcher. He half jokingly says he has to keep working because his retirement funds are sorely depleted.

SM declined to be interviewed for this story. She has endeavoured to move on from the case that has so consumed her family. Following the trial, her school grades returned to As. She moved away from Timmins to go to university, eventually acquiring two degrees. She now lives in a southwestern Ontario city and at age 32, has a highly successful career.

DM is well aware that it could have turned out very differently. "Innocence. There's no price for it. It's as simple as that."

Source: website of the Toronto Star

Two Argentinians have been jailed for kidnapping a baby and raising her as their daughter. They did not go through regular adoption channels, but during Argentina's Dirty War resorted to false birth documents to create a connection with the girl. The girl, now thirty-year-old Maria Eugenia Sampallo Barragán, views them not as parents, but as kidnappers. We had earlier comments on this story on January 20.

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3 Convicted in Argentine Adoption Trial

By JEANNETTE NEUMANN – 20 hours ago

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A court on Friday sentenced the adoptive parents of a baby born to a missing political prisoner to up to eight years in prison for concealing the child's identity, in a landmark case with roots in Argentina's dictatorship.

The court also handed down a sentence of 10 years to a former army captain accused of giving the couple the baby after the real parents were abducted by state security forces during the 1976-1983 military regime and never reappeared.

The case marked the first time a child of a dissident who disappeared during Argentina's "dirty war" had taken her adoptive parents to court. Human rights groups say more than 200 such children were taken from abducted mothers and given to military or politically connected families to raise. DNA tests have allowed some of them to identify their real parents.

The court sentenced Osvaldo Rivas and his former wife, Maria Cristina Gomez Pinto, to eight years and seven years in prison, respectively, for falsifying documents and concealing the identity of a minor. The former captain, Enrique Berthier, received 10 years.

Maria Eugenia Sampallo Barragan, who in 2001 learned she was the daughter of missing political prisoners Mirta Mable Barragan and Leonardo Ruben Sampall, sat impassively wearing thick black-rim glasses as the verdict was read.

There were gasps in the courtroom, which was packed with activists and friends.

Human rights groups, which provided legal counsel to the now-30-year-old plaintiff, protested that the accused should have received the maximum sentence — 25 years.

"We do not agree with the sentence," said Rosa de Roisinblit, the vice president of the human rights group the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. "In the United States and other countries, a stolen child is almost akin to murder, and here it's nothing."

Several Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who have identified 88 children of their "disappeared" sons and daughters through DNA tests, had sat in the court for daily closed-door sessions since trial began in February.

Sampallo's lawyer, Tomas Ojea Quintana, said he would appeal for longer prisoner terms for the three defendants.

None of the defendants' lawyers issued comments after the verdict.

Berthier's lawyer, Alejandro Maria Macedo Rumi, said during the trial there was no proof that Sampallo's parents were missing or disappeared. He added that the evidence against Berthier was given by "former terrorists" who had participated in leftist militant groups.

"It's all part of a conspiracy against the military," Macedo said.

The left-leaning coalition led by former president Nestor Kirchner and current President Cristina Fernandez has made human rights prosecutions of "dirty war" abuses a priority. Fernandez recently vowed to speed up scores of cases around the country.

Victor Enrique Valle, a lawyer for both Rivas and Pinto, said during the trial the adoptive parents "could have no way of knowing where their daughter came from."

In 2001, Sampallo's mother was six months pregnant when she and her father were abducted on Dec. 6, 1977, said Sampallo's lawyer. He said Sampallo was born in February 1978, while her mother was being held at a clandestine torture center.

There have been at least three earlier trials involving suspected illegal adoptions dating to the dictatorship that resulted in convictions — but the plaintiffs in those cases were not the adopted children.

On Monday, Sampallo held a news conference in which she held up black-and-white photographs of Rivas and Gomez Pinto and declared they never truly were her adoptive parents.

"These are not my parents," Sampallo said. "They are my kidnappers."

Then she held up a photo of her biological father and mother, two leftist activists who remain missing.

"These are my parents," she said

Source: Associated Press hosted by Google

From other news reports, Maria Eugenia Sampallo Barragán holds pictures of her parents, whose fate remains unknown:

When Philadelphia mom Sharonda Sowell heard from social worker Danelle Cooper that her children were to be taken away, she defended her family by attacking the worker. The mother has been sentenced to twelve years under control of the police, the first four behind bars. At least she fared better than Bryan S Russell and Gene Valasquez who both died defending their families from social workers.

Columnist Jill Porter presents the story from the social worker's perspective, never seeing that there is any reason for the mother's actions. Sowell's neighbors seemed to understand the situation better when they refused to intervene to protect Cooper.

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Posted on Wed, Apr. 2, 2008

Jill Porter: Justice is served, but too late for shattered social worker

By Jill Porter, Philadelphia Daily News, Daily News Columnist

THEY'RE OUT there every day, in dangerous neighborhoods, in volatile situations, trying to protect the city's most vulnerable children.

They should never have to fear injury or death while doing it.

That was the message sent earlier this month when a woman who had ferociously attacked a city social worker investigating a report of child neglect was sent to state prison.

The worker, Danelle Cooper, had hair pulled from her scalp; she was bitten, punched and bloodied - and she was terrified she'd be killed.

"Emotionally, it's still hard just to think about what happened to me," said the 10-year veteran of the city's Department of Human Services.

DHS has changed policies to better protect its workers.

And Common Pleas Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe sentenced Cooper's attacker to two to four years in state prison followed by eight years' probation. That's a serious sentence in a system often criticized for leniency.

Dembe declined comment on the March 19 sentence because of potential appeals that may come before her.

But Assistant District Attorney Dawn Holtz said that the message is clear: Attacks on city workers will be met with harsh consequences.

"It's really serious because these DHS workers - they go out there, they're not armed, they're out there trying to do something good, to make sure these kids are safe," Holtz said.

When Cooper arrived at the house on Chadwick Street in North Philadelphia last Sept. 26, she found a toddler and three other children unsupervised.

The mom came home drunk. When Cooper said that the children couldn't stay there under the circumstances, she expected the usual resistance.

"I've been cursed at, yelled at, called all kinds of names," Cooper told me. "You can usually de-escalate it."

But Sharonda Sowell went on the attack.

She punched Cooper in the face and bit her repeatedly; she pulled her hair so hard it came out of her scalp.

When Cooper fled outside, Sowell chased her and continued the assault while neighbors ignored Cooper's pleas for help.

Sowell, 31, pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated assault, terroristic threats and reckless endangerment.

Cooper was shattered. She was out of work for the better part of two months and still is gripped by fear.

She has an inside job now and no longer goes into the field to investigate allegations of abuse.

She's not sure she'll ever recover enough emotionally to go back on the street.

"It saddens me tremendously, because I enjoyed doing fieldwork and assessing children's safety," she said. "I'd never have thought I'd be the one who was not safe."

The attack understandably rattled workers at DHS, and the agency took it to heart.

After 5 p.m., social workers who go to a residence to investigate allegations of abuse are instructed to travel in pairs. They can refuse to go solo at any time if they feel threatened.

Through an arrangement with former Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, DHS spokeswoman Alicia Taylor said, the workers can also go to the nearest police district and ask for an officer to accompany them.

If they get into trouble in the field, their calls to police are given high priority, only one notch below an "assist officer" call, Taylor said.

"We're very sensitive to this issue and continue to work on increasing worker safety," she said.

Meanwhile, Danelle Cooper is grateful to her DHS colleagues for their support.

"The outpouring was tremendous. I got so many cards and flowers and food, it was just phenomenal."

She's also grateful to Judge Dembe for the sentence she imposed on Sowell and the message it sends.

"I think the public needs to know that we're out here, we're doing our jobs, we should not feel threatened, we should not be attacked," Cooper said.

"Clients should know there are serious repercussions to attacking a DHS worker or anyone who is in public service."

Cooper's still receiving counseling and continuing to recover.

"I don't think I'll ever put it completely behind me," she said. *

E-mail porterj@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5850.

Source: website of the Philadelphia Daily News

There has been progress in enacting legislation to open Ontario's adoption records.

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COAR Bulletin

April 3, 2008

This afternoon Bill 12, the Access to Adoption Records Act, passed second reading in the Ontario legislature.

Bill 12

As you will recall, the Liberals introduced the bill late in 2007. To become law it still has to go to parliamentary committee and then pass third reading. If it passes into law, Bill 12 will:

• permit adopted adults access to their original birth certificates
• permit birth parents of adopted adults access to the adoptee’s original and amended birth certificates
• allow both adoptees and birth parents to file contact and disclosure vetoes
• allow adoptees and birth parents who participate in an adoption after September 1, 2008 unrestricted access to identifying information once the adoptee reaches adulthood.

Today in the Legislature

Today Madeleine Meilleur, the Minister of Community and Social Services, reintroduced the bill and spoke eloquently of birth mothers’ need to learn information about their adult children. Then Julia Munro spoke for the Conservatives; she criticized the Liberals for failing to attach a disclosure veto to the previous bill.

The surprise came when Peter Kormos from the NDP denounced the adoption community as zealots and praised the privacy commissioner for her valiant fight to protect the privacy of frightened birth mothers. We were very surprised to hear such strong statements from the NDP who, until this time, had unequivocally supported open records in Ontario. Michael Prue of the NDP spoke after Kormos and was less antagonistic. He simply recognized the need to include a disclosure veto after Judge Belobaba’s ruling last fall.

Next Steps

We anticipate that the bill will go to committee some time this spring. The government has indicated that there will be no public presentations. The committee will go through the bill clause by clause. At the conclusion of this process, the bill will go to the legislature for third reading.

In solidarity,

Michael Grand, mgrand@uoguelph.ca

Karen Lynn, ccnm@rogers.com

Wendy Rowney, wrowney@rogers.com

COAR Coordinating Committee

Source: email from COAR

Martin Walsh, a New York cat owner, has been charged for failure to get medical treatment for his geriatric cat. According the the authorities, he should have taken the cat to the vet, or turned it over to the ASPCA.

This case ought to be laughed out of court, but a judge has forced Walsh to stand trial. How long until we have a Cat Aid Society?

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Owner Charged With Cruelty for Failing to Treat Cat's Ailments

Noeleen G. Walder, New York Law Journal, March 24, 2008

A cat owner who did not seek treatment for his pet's serious ailments during the cat's last year of life can be charged with animal cruelty, a Manhattan judge has ruled.

Allegations that the defendant left a "swollen and bleeding" paw and other conditions untreated "sufficiently demonstrate that the animal was subjected to unjustifiable physical pain," Criminal Court Judge ShawnDya L. Simpson wrote in People v. Walsh, 2007NY022001.

Henry I. Weil, attorney for Martin Walsh, said the 15-year-old house cat became sick over time and was at "the tail end of its life span."

While Walsh loved the cat, which he had had since it was a kitten, he recognized that "it was time to let it go," according to Weil.

In January 2007, Walsh took the cat to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to be euthanized, Weil added. Three months later, he was charged with animal cruelty, a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail, under §353 of the Agriculture and Markets Law.

The statute imposes criminal liability on "a person who overdrives, overloads, tortures or cruelly beats or unjustifiably injures ... any animal, or deprives any animal of necessary sustenance, food or drink ... or who ... instigates, engages in, or in any way furthers any act of cruelty to any animal."

According to the decision, the allegations did not establish that Walsh deprived the cat of food and water. Walsh maintained that medical care does not amount to "necessary sustenance" and moved to dismiss the charge.

Judge Simpson rejected the motion, saying the allegations against Walsh set forth a "prima facie" case that his "act of omission" was unjustifiable.

While Simpson agreed that the "ordinary meaning" of the term "necessary sustenance" does not encompass medical treatment, she held that Walsh's failure to provide such treatment caused the cat to suffer "unjustifiable physical pain," bringing the lack of care within the statute's prohibition of torture.

Section 350 of the law defined "torture" and "cruelty" as "every act, omission, or neglect, that causes or permits an animal to suffer unjustifiable physical pain or death."

According to the decision, the cat suffered from a number of maladies, including dehydration, emaciation and a "readily visible" "swollen and bleeding" right-front paw, which was the result of an untreated tumor.

The accusatory instrument quotes Walsh as admitting that he had owned the cat for 15 years and never took him to the veterinarian.

"I noticed the paw was like that. It has been like that for a year," he said.

The cat also had a polyp in its nasal passage that made it difficult for it to breathe and allegedly suffered from chronic periodontal, liver and kidney diseases.

"[I]t is difficult to conclude at this stage that the physical condition the animal was allegedly permitted to suffer was justifiable," the judge concluded.

If Walsh was unable to care for the cat due to financial or other reasons, he had the option of surrendering it to the ASPCA, the judge said. But the judge noted that the defendant had offered no justification for permitting the animal to suffer for more than a year. And she observed that Walsh could offer such a justification at trial.

Darryl M. Vernon of Vernon & Ginsburg, a veteran member of the New York City Bar's animal law committee who is not involved in the case, praised Simpson's decision.

While Vernon acknowledged that the case might lead some people to hide evidence of animal neglect for fear of prosecution, he said it served "the greater good" by making it clear that "you can't get an animal and treat him [or] her like a TV."

Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Gihuly prosecuted the case.

Walsh is scheduled to take a plea on April 16.

Source: website of the New York Law Journal

According to Erika Klein a journalist, Nicole Brewster of the CBC's Fifth Estate, is looking for victims of the dead baby scam, either as mother or child. If you are a mother who was falsely told that your baby had died, or a child whose mother was so deceived, get in touch with Nicole Brewster at the address below.

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Thursday, April 03, 2008

"Dead" Baby Scam

**please circulate**

One of the producers of the Fifth Estate, Nicole Brewster, is looking for victims of the "dead" baby scam.

For those who don't know about "dead" baby scams, here is what happened.

Some mothers and fathers were told that their baby had died at or shortly after birth. They were not allowed to see their children's bodies.

Some parents are now finding out that their babies did not die.It seems that some "dead" babies were put up for adoption without the parents knowledge, never mind consent.

A number of these "dead" babies are now very alive adopted adults who are finding their parents and are shocked to find out how they ended up for adoption.

Bribes were taken/paid in a number of cases.

Anyway, if you are a victim of such a scam (whether you are a parent or an adoptee), or have information about this, Nicole would like to hear from you for the Fifth Estate program.

Nicole Brewster-Mercury
Associate Producer CBC Television-fifth estate
(416) 205-6637
nicole_brewster@cbc.ca

Source: Erika Klein blog entry for April 3, 2008

When a twelve-year-old boy saw a man, Salomon Noubissie, choking his mother, Cheryl Stamp, he yelled for the man to stop, and when that failed, struck the man with a knife killing him.

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Md. Boy, 12, Kills Man Attacking Mother

Officials Undecided On Filing Charges

By Avis Thomas-Lester and Hamil R. Harris, Washington Post Staff Writers, Wednesday, April 2, 2008; A01

The 12-year-old boy had finished his homework and was playing a video game when he heard his mother cry out. Rushing to her aid, he found her on the kitchen floor, straddled by a fellow resident of their Prince George's County boarding house, the man's hands wrapped tightly around her neck, the boy said yesterday.

"I kept saying, 'Stop! Stop! Stop!' " the boy said, describing the events of Monday night. "But he just ignored me. He didn't stop. He just kept hurting her."

The boy said he grabbed a knife and swung, slashing 64-year-old Salomon Noubissie across the neck and opening an artery. Noubissie was fatally wounded.

The mother, Cheryl Stamp, said she did not immediately understand what had happened. "What did you do?" she said she asked her son.

"He didn't say anything," she said. "But I knew when I looked in his eyes. I said, 'Oh, Lord.' "

Law enforcement officials were reviewing evidence yesterday and had not decided whether to file charges. Their preliminary account of the incident broadly matches that of the boy and his mother.

The case presents exceedingly unusual circumstances: Rarely is a 12-year-old implicated in a homicide, and even less often does a child that age take a life to protect his mother.

"In Maryland, there can be a legitimate defense of third parties in the event of a violent attack," State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey said. "That is a possibility in this case."

Yesterday, Stamp and her son were secluded in the boarding house on Roosevelt Avenue in the Landover area, curtains closed and doors locked against reporters and neighbors.

Like other neighbors, Turan Queen said she stood by the child. "His reaction was to help his mother," she said. "This was a 12-year-old defending his mother."

Stamp and her son agreed to be interviewed by Washington Post reporters, in part to explain the boy's actions. The Post is not naming the boy because he is a minor.

Efforts to contact Noubissie's family were unsuccessful.

Stamp said she and Noubissie, a Cameroonian immigrant, moved into the boarding house within days of each other about three months ago. They became fast friends, she said.

Stamp said that she is unemployed and that Noubissie had told her he was studying to be a psychiatrist. She said the boarding house is owned by Noubissie's nephew, a Massachusetts resident.

On Monday night, she said, Noubissie was not himself. He started to yell at her and grab her hair, she said. He was speaking in his native French, as he often did, but this time in "a devilish voice," she said. "He was talking crazy," Stamp said.

She said she tried to use "reverse psychology," ordering him to leave the kitchen and go to his room to calm down. His response was violent, she said.

"He threw me into the door so hard it hit my back, and it made my chest start hurting," she said. "Then he threw me to the floor. He threw me down and started choking me. I think that's when my son came in. . . . He protected me."

The boy, who is 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 175 pounds, said he acted because he thought he had no choice. "He was hitting her with the broom; then he was choking her," the boy said. "I told him to stop."

He grabbed a knife that he said his family had last used to cut turkey at Thanksgiving dinner.

"I knew I had to kill him so he would stop hurting my mother," he said.

Once she was freed, Stamp said she yelled upstairs for someone to call police. She said her son took her by the arm and led her into their bedroom.

Nearby, Noubissie was flailing and yelling, Stamp and her son said. As the door closed, she noticed the blood coming from his neck. "I didn't know where all that blood was coming from," she said. "He was talking in that language -- loud."

Stamp said she did not realize for several moments that her son, and not she, had been responsible for inflicting the injury that caused Noubissie to release her.

In the bedroom, as they waited for police, the boy did not speak, Stamp said. She sat on a couch, looked down and saw the bloody knife, she said.

Noubissie was alive when police arrived, Stamp said. He was combative with the officers, she said, even as he bled heavily. He died at a hospital. Police sources confirmed her account.

Stamp, who has two adult children and a 17-year-old daughter who lives with the girl's father, said the tragedy was the second to befall her family. She supports herself and her son from "widow's benefits" she has received since her husband fatally shot himself more than 20 years ago. Her eldest son, 27, witnessed the suicide, she said. "I've had enough drama in my life," she said.

The 12-year-old boy said yesterday that he was not happy about what he had done but that he knew that it was the right thing.

"I just asked God again to protect me and my mother," he said. "I told God that I had stabbed him because he was killing my mother. I know he understands, and I think he will keep us safe now."

After the stabbing Monday night, after police had left and neighbors returned to their homes, the two sat and held each other. There was no sleep that night for either.

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.

Source: website of the Washington Post

Ontario's new child advocate, Agnes Samler, has made a submission to the Goudge inquiry (pdf). It includes the recommendation:

That revisions be made to the current funding formula to allow Children's Aid Societies to emphasize prevention and support to children in their own homes, where appropriate.

This is the first public indication confirming the private anecdotes that Ontario's new low-profile leadership is changing course. They want to eliminate the system in which children's aid societies get funded primarily for the number of children in foster care. This is a good start. It appears that the government intends to make its policy changes through regulation. Only legislative changes are likely to survive the tenure of the current Liberal government.

In a closing submission to the Goudge inquiry (pdf), lawyer Suzan Fraser, acting on behalf of Defence of Children International, quotes Eileen Munro:

social workers need a greater acceptance of their fallibility and a willingness to consider that the judgements and decisions are wrong. To change your mind in the light of new information is a sign of good practice, a sign of strength not weakness.

The performance of Suzan Fraser at the Goudge inquiry impels us to change our mind in the light of new information. We hereby repudiate our earlier suspicions of Defence of Children International - Canada and Matthew Geigen-Miller expressed on April 18, 2007 in a note on Child Advocacy in Ontario. They deserve to be respected as conscientious advocates for the welfare of Canada's children.

The Goudge inquiry has found a case in which the coroner's office extended no sympathy to a bereaved mother, instead used the delivery of a report on her child's death as an opportunity to interrogate her and secretly record the conversation. A proposal has been placed before the Goudge inquiry by Suzan Fraser to allow parents to grieve for their dead children without police harassment. We show Harold Levy's comments on this topic below, for his comments on the whole inquiry refer to the Charles Smith blog.

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Saturday, March 29, 2008

Closing Submissions; End Surreptitious Police Surveillance Of Meetings Between Grieving Parents And Pathologists Or Coroners;

It seems pretty obvious that the days after the sudden loss of a child must be among the most torturous that a parent can experience.

It was therefore shocking to learn during the Goudge Inquiry that Dr. Charles Smith had agreed with the Barrie, Ontario police force to meet a bereaved mother in her home to report on his investigation of the death of her child - knowing that their conversation would be surreptitiously recorded by police.

It is impossible to know whether this was an isolated incident - or whether other pathologists and coroner's - supposedly independent -also see themselves as an arm of the police investigation into an infant's death.

For that reason, lawyer Suzan Fraser's recommendation that grieving parents should be spared this intrusive surveillance - on behalf of Defence For Children International Canada - is most welcome.

Fraser notes in a closing submissions filed with the Goudge Inquiry that whether they are under suspicion or not, "parents and guardians should be entitled to receive information about the death of their child, including the post-mortem report in a caring and compassionate environment free from police surveillance and judgment."

"If the opportunity is lost to catch an incriminating statement, so be it," she adds. "There are some forms of police action that ought not to be countenanced."

I personally couldn't agree more - and I hope that Commissioner Goudge will underscore the importance of pathologists and coroner's acting independently of the police - and not as their agents - when he pens his report, now due in September.

For those who have not read it, the earlier posting ran as follows on February 1, 2008 under the heading "Smith: A loyal member of the prosecution team to the end."

"At times it is good to get right to the point" the posting began.

"Dr. Smith has admitted that he saw himself as a member of the prosecution team - and that his role was to help the Crown win the case, "in the 80's," it continued.

However, on Wednesday morning the Goudge Inquiry heard startling evidence that he once agreed to go to Barrie, Ontario to meet with the mother of a deceased child - knowing that the conversation would be recorded by bugs which had been surreptitiously planted in her home by the police.

This was in 1996;

It is also noteworthy that Smith admitted in cross-examination regarded himself as a member of the prosecution team in "Sharon's case" where he testified under cross-examination at the mother's preliminary hearing that it was "absolutely wrong" to hypothesize a dog attack.

(The police theory was that Sharon had 81-wounds inflicted by knives or scissors - and that she had not been attacked by a Pit Bull as defence experts insisted - which later proved to be the case).

"I believe I could well have slipped into an advocacy role here," Dr. Smith said. "I believe that I knew by then that I wasn't to be an advocate ..."

This was in 1998;

Dr. Smith gave this evidence as an "advocate" for the prosecution, seven years after he was appointed Director of the Ontario Forensic Pediatric Pathology Unit at the Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto - and just three years before his name was removed from the roster for performing forensic autopsies.

It was near the end of his career - far from the beginning;

The evidence indicates that Dr. Smith - or "Mr. Smith" as Lawyer James Lockyer, representing nine families insisted on calling him yesterday - saw himself as a loyal member of the prosecution team right to the end.

Back to the Barrie case:

Smith's cooperation in the police investigation is documented in an affidavit by Detective Sergeant Mark Holden which filed as an exhibit;

Here is the complete affidavit - dated January 28, 2008;

"1: I am a staff Sergeant of the Barrie Police Service. I was involved in the investigation into the death of X, who was a minor. I believe that revealing the name of the minor and his mother could jeopardize an on-going investigation. I have knowledge of the matters deposed to in my affidavit.

2: On Sept 4, 1996, the Ontario Provincial Police (O.P.P) intercepted a telephone conversation between Dr. Smith and X’s mother pursuant to an authorization granted under Part VI of the Criminal Code of Canada. Dep. Insp. McNeil of the O.P.P. learned from the conversation that Dr Smith intended to meet with X’s mother at her home in the Barrie area to discuss with her the results of the report on his post-mortem examination on X. Det. Insp. McNeil knew that listening devices installed in the house, also pursuant to a Part VI application, would likely intercept this conversation.

3: Dep. Insp. McNeil subsequently met with members of the Barrie Police Service including me, to discuss the situation. Det. Insp. McNeil telephoned Dr. Smith and advised him that the listening devices installed in the house would likely intercept his conversations with X’s mother.

4: Dr. Smith agreed to meet with the Barrie Police Service and Det. Insp. McNeil and he did so on Sept. 5, 1996, the day he was scheduled to meet with X’s mother. The meeting took place at the Barrie Police Service police station and lasted approximately 20 minutes. During the meeting, the Barrie Police and Det, Insp. McNeil s did not direct Dr. Smith in in any way as to how to conduct the meeting with X’s mother and did not ask him to solicit any information from her. At the conclusion of the meeting with Barrie police and Det. Insp. McNeil, Dr. Smith went to the house of X’s mother and met with her.

5: Following that meeting, Dr. Smith met with representatives of the Barrie Police Service and Det, Insp. McNeil over lunch to discuss his meeting with X's mother. Dr. Smith explained that she had a number of questions about his findings and that he answered her questions arising from his report on post-mortem examination.

6: The Barrie Police officers recall that Dr. Smith expressed a view on X's mother's demeanour when she was discussing her child's death. Dr. Smith said, "It was like talking to a load of gravel." The officers understood this to mean that Dr. Smith was commenting on the inappropriate and flat affect of X's mother during that meeting. The Barrie police do not recall that Dr. Smith expressed a position during the lunch meetings to whether or not his pathology evidence supported X's mother's culpability or not.

7: I recall that there were two case conferences involving Dr. Cairns and Dr. Smith, which were held on April 17, 1996, and May 30, 1996. However at these meetings there was no discussion of any surveillance of X's mother.

8: I do not recall any further meetings with Dr. Smith following his meeting with X's mother.

9: The Barrie police have complied with S. 196 of the Criminal Code and have provided X's mother with written notification of the authorization of the interception."

A few comments:

Doctor Smith acknowledged in cross-examination that his interview with the mother in these circumstances was inappropriate but told the Inquiry that he had been asked to attend the meeting by Deputy Chief Coroner Dr. James Cairns;

In fairness to Dr. Cairns, by now we are well aware that just because Dr. Smith said this under oath does not mean that this is true. (We don't have Dr. Cairns side of the story);

However it is worth pointing out that this may not be an isolated incident in Ontario.

An earlier posting in the context of "Tiffani's case" contained a note written by a prosecutor which read: "Our file contains... a lot of information involving the initial coroner's investigation, including videotaped statements from both accused taken by the Regional Coroner Dr. (Benoit) Bechard and the police without caution, warning, or right to counsel."

Source: Charles Smith blog by Harold Levy

Here is another case of child protectors doing the right thing. An Illinois girl ran away from her adoptive parents to be with her real dad, and child protectors are supporting the dad.

This case shares a theme with the cases of Anna Marie He and Allison Quets: baby-stealers acting under color of law are extraordinarily litigious in dealing with the real parents.

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Adoptive parents seek $3 million from DCFS, Granite City cops and biological parent

3/25/2008 2:00 PM, By Ann Knef

The parents of an adopted child are seeking in excess of $3 million after their 16-year-old daughter was allegedly placed by a state agency with the girl's biological father, without a court order.

David D. Schwierjohn and Irene L. Schwierjohn of Granite City filed suit pro se against the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and its worker, the Granite City Police Department and officer Craig Knight, as well as Mark Breeden, the girl's biological father, and his now ex-wife Mary Breeden.

According to the suit filed March 24 in Madison County Circuit Court, the Breedens allegedly convinced the girl to run away from home on or about March 23, 2007.

The Schwierjohns claim they were notified by officer Knight that their daughter was being placed with the Breedens... "despite there being no court order, nor being any legal nor logical reason why (the girl) should be with the Defendants....who were not licensed foster parents nor in any way related to (the girl)."

"The actions of Defendants Illinois Department of Children and Family Servies, John Doe, Granite City Police Department, and Craig Knight were in violation of 42USC1983 and denied Plaintiffs their constitutional rights under color of state law," the complaint states.

The Schwierjohns and their daughter claim infliction of emotional distress.

Source: website of the St Clair Record

Teenagers in Wales will soon be given breathalyzer tests for walking while intoxicated. Those found drunk will be returned to parents or placed in foster care. These systems usually come with harsh penalties for refusal to cooperate with the tests. The article does not say how much will be spent on new foster homes or jails.

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Trial scheme to breathalyse children

This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Thursday March 27 2008. It was last updated at 10:30 on March 27 2008.

Girls drinking in Seaham, County Durham, 2004. Photograph: Karen Robinson

Children could be breathalysed under radical new plans to tackle underage drinking.

Police officers will also use test strips to check to see if soft drinks have been mixed with alcohol.

Under the new plans, which are to be piloted in North Wales, teenagers could be stopped in the street and tested for alcohol. Teens who are found with alcohol or who fail the test will be taken home to their parents.

In February North Wales police seized 14 litres of cider and 55 cans of lager in a 16-day operation to confiscate alcohol from children.

But the Children's Society warned that the new measures wouldn't be enough to tackle the problem.

A spokesperson said: "Labelling teenagers as 'yobs' who need to regularly be stopped and breathalysed will not solve the problem of alcohol misuse among young people. We can only effectively tackle the issue by addressing the wider binge-drinking culture."

And a spokesman for Alcohol Concern added that the plans didn't go far enough.

"A more fundamental approach is needed to tackle the wider issues around the problem," she said. "We need to be wary of gimmicks.

"There are already substantial powers to allow police to seize alcohol from teenagers drinking in public and take them home to parents. There are two issues we need to tackle: educating parents, and sourcing of alcohol. We need to educate parents about the dangers of children drinking in public, and crack down on irresponsible retailers consistently selling alcohol to children."

The Home Office pledged £875,000 towards tackling underage drinking in February 2008.

A Home Office spokesman said: "The government is committed to tackling crime and disorder associated with binge-drinking. Police and local authorities already have a wide range of tools to tackle alcohol-related disorder following a number of recent initiatives and we will be keeping a watching brief on the results of this pilot."

A spokeswoman for the British Liver Trust hailed it as a positive move, but said more needed to be done: "This is a positive step but it's not enough – it needs to be part of a wider programme of measures to tackle the problem. Raising the price of alcohol would help. It's pocket money prices – children can afford to buy alcohol over a can of cola. Educating children at school is paramount - this needs to be tackled as part of a wide children's health issue."

Source: website of the Guardian (UK)

Here is the best sob story yet about cuts in funding for children's aid. According to its Careers webpage, Waterloo CAS has 575+ employees. Peter Ringrose says that he has had to lay off 17 of his staff. Only 558+ to go!

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Peter Ringrose DAVID BEBEE, RECORD STAFF

March 26, 2008

Children forgotten by Ontario budget

Frances Barrick, RECORD STAFF, WATERLOO REGION

On the day of the provincial budget, the man in charge of looking after Waterloo Region's neediest children was fuming.

"At the present, it doesn't seem that children are very high on their priority list," Peter Ringrose, executive director of Family and Children's Services of Waterloo Region, said yesterday of the Liberal government.

Last week, Ringrose had to cut two programs because a shortfall in provincial money left his agency with a deficit of $1.2 million. A total of 164 families were affected by the cuts. Ringrose was also forced to lay off 17 employees.

He fears there could be more cuts, especially since yesterday's budget contained no cure for the agency's financial ills. Among the possible targets are subsidies for families who adopt high-needs children.

"The problem is mounting instead of getting smaller and it will have to be dealt with at some point," Ringrose said.

In 2006, the McGuinty government ordered child-protection agencies such as Family and Children's Services to implement what it called a "transforming agenda." The guiding principle was that children are best left with their immediate or extended families instead of being put in foster care or group homes.

But the agenda required social workers to devote more time to individual cases, connecting with the families and monitoring precarious domestic situations.

In 2006-07, Family and Children's Services received $979,000 from the province to implement the agenda. Last year, that funding was cut to $434,000.

Because of the resulting deficit, the agency had to cut two programs aimed at keeping at-risk adolescents in their homes. One recreation-based program, called Going Beyond, helped 103 youths; the other program, called Outreach, helped 61 families.

Without these programs, "we are going to see more kids at risk of coming into our care," Ringrose said.

The agency recently closed a group home for teens because there wasn't a need for it, he said. Now the home may have to be reopened.

Yesterday, the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies said 46 of the province's 53 agencies are running deficits.

The combined deficit of $22.3 million this fiscal year could rise to $60 million next year, the association said.

Ringrose said he's met with Children and Youth Services Minister Deb Matthews and Kitchener Centre MPP John Milloy, but there was no promise of more help.

fbarrick@therecord.com

Source: website of the Waterloo Record

Addendum: A reader suggests that Peter Ringrose should attend an anger management course.

Columnist Lindor Reynolds was able to read the social worker's notes in the case of the late Gage Guimond.

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Winnipeg Free Press

Social workers kept good notes of depraved care

Lindor Reynolds, Updated: March 25, 2008 at 12:55 AM CDT

Gage Guimond's internal CFS file, appropriately enough, ends with a mistake.

An entry dated July 24, 2007 notes that the toddler's final funeral costs were $3389.89. That's a neat trick, given the two-year-old's burial would not take place until a week later.

But what's one more clerical error when it's stacked against the fetid pile of missteps, errors in judgment, bad decisions and criminal behaviour documented in the dead child's file?

From April 28, 2006 to July 24, 2007 there are seven pages of notes on Gage's wretched life. They make grim reading -- not just because you know in advance the story ends with a battered and broken child.

The terse entries in the Gage Dakota Guimond file do more than document the short, unhappy life of a little boy. They serve as a direct indictment of the child welfare system.

The very people who were sworn to protect Gage and his sister knew what was happening to them every step of the way. They took notes. They phoned each other. They gave second, third and fourth chances to everyone except Gage, his sister and the loving foster family who could have saved them both.

When a CFS worker supplied diapers and food to a woman temporarily (and reluctantly) taking care of the children, she alleged their mother was using drugs heavily.

A note went in the file.

Two days later, Gage was left in the care of another woman -- one whose last name the CFS workers didn't know. Their mother had disappeared again, Gage needed milk and diapers and he had a serious eye infection. It was again alleged that the mom was using drugs heavily.

A note went in the file.

On May 3, 2006, Gage's foster mother reported he was returned to her from a family visit dirty and hungry. On May 15, the foster parents outlined his medical and developmental problems, including his severe asthma. On July 17, they reported he returned from another family visit reeking of cigarette smoke.

It all went in the file.

On and on it goes. CFS was so determined to return Gage and his sister to their birth family that it ignored warning signs that could have been seen from space.

Workers tried to drop off the kids for a scheduled visit at the home of their grandmother, Beverly Beardy. She wasn't home. They tried again. Beardy cancelled that visit because she had an appointment with her own probation officer.

When Gage was staying with Beardy and CFS workers visited, they documented the fact that she wasn't there but an older man was present and someone else was sleeping on the floor.

There is no indication CFS workers ever identified the strangers who were left in charge of the children.

On May 25, 2007, the workers discovered evidence of a drinking party at Beardy's house. She wasn't home.

The children, now lice-ridden, were taken from Beardy May 29.

It's all in the file.

CFS had to find another home for these poor kids. They rejected the option of returning them to their stable foster family, to the couple who made doctor appointments the birth family didn't keep, who listed the children's likes and dislikes and who wept when the children were taken from them.

That's in the file too.

A CFS worker pointed out that Shirley Guimond, the great-aunt ultimately chosen to care for the Guimond children, has a cat and her house was perhaps not an ideal choice for an asthmatic toddler. Gage and his sister were placed there anyway.

After Gage was found dead in Guimond's house, CFS carefully noted that his sister "was found to be covered in bruises." The file detailed Shirley Guimond's criminal history, which includes a previous arrest for assault.

What is not in the file is critical. Why did a collection of allegedly trained child welfare workers prove incapable of connecting the dots that lead from the tragedy of Gage Guimond's birth to a 15-year-old drug-addicted mother to the tragedy of his death, allegedly at the hands of his ex-con great-aunt?

Could no one have known where this was leading?

They had information that spoke to child neglect, abuse, hunger and depraved indifference. They wrote it all down -- and then they wrote down the cost of Gage Guimond's funeral.

lindor.reynolds@freepress.mb.ca

Source: website of the Winnipeg Free Press

In an incident apparently unrelated to child protection, the Windsor-Essex Children's Aid Society has again been damaged by a motor vehicle. Three and a half years ago, suicide bomber Jim Malone caused $1.5 damage to the CAS building. See Oct 26, Oct 27 and Oct 29 2004.

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Man critical after crashing car on Riverside Drive

Trevor Wilhelm, Windsor Star, Published: Wednesday, March 26, 2008

WINDSOR - Police say alcohol was a factor in a crash that sent one man to a London hospital in critical condition after the truck he was driving slammed into the sign outside the Children's Aid Society on Riverside Drive.

The accident happened just before 2 a.m. Wednesday. Police say alcohol was a factor, and the driver and passenger were both not wearing seatbelts.

"The vehicle went straight off the road and into the sign," said Staff Sgt. Ed McNorton. "There is no indication that there was any braking."

The 43-year-old passenger of the white F-150 pick up truck, who hit his head on the windshield, is in serious condition.

The 52-year-old driver also suffered head injuries, said McNorton.

Police and fire personnel responded to the crash at 1:42 a.m. McNorton said the police collision reconstruction team was on the scene. When officers arrived following the crash, someone was there trying to turn off the power to the sign, police said.

A flatbed truck had to haul away the pick up. The road was shut down between Lincoln and Devonshire roads until about 8 a.m.

twilhelm@thestar.canwest.com or 519-255-5777 ext. 642

Source: Windsor Star at canada.com

Leaning Tower of Windsor Rob Gurdebeke, The Windsor Star

Reena Virk envied the freedom of foster children and made up false accusations to get herself into foster care. The group of "friends" she met in foster care killed her in 1997. In 1999 the parents filed suit against the Province of British Columbia over their daughter's death. Now the courts have ruled that the delays in the litigation are reason to deny the family compensation.

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Judge dismisses Virk family lawsuit

DIRK MEISSNER

The Canadian Press

March 26, 2008 at 6:31 PM EDT

VICTORIA — A B.C. Supreme Court justice has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the parents of Reena Virk against the B.C. government, saying the family waited too long to bring their matter to trial.

Justice Jacqueline Dorgan acknowledged the widespread sympathy for the family whose 14-year-old daughter was beaten and drowned in a horrific incident of teen violence.

But Judge Dorgan said letting the civil case go ahead now would be unfair.

Six teenaged girls were convicted of assault and Warren Glowatski and Kelly Ellard were convicted of second-degree murder in Reena Virk's 1997 death.

Ms. Ellard has gone through three trials and will appeal her latest conviction in the case in May.

In the lawsuit, the Virk family alleged the B.C. government didn't protect their daughter while she was in government care.

“Every person in this courtroom and many in the community have so much sympathy for the plaintiffs and their loss,” said Judge Dorgan.

“(But) a fair (civil) trial has simply been very seriously compromised. The interests of justice have best been served by a dismissal.”

Judge Dorgan said the Virks initially filed a lawsuit writ in November 1999, two years after their daughter's death.

But almost a decade after the original lawsuit was filed, the government was still waiting for information on how the Virks intended to proceed.

“It is a long way from being ready for trial,” she said. “Two trial dates have been set and lost.”

Manjit Virk, Reena's father, said outside court Wednesday the family never intentionally delayed taking the matter to court and was simply waiting for Ms. Ellard's trials to end.

“We were under the impression, I guess by the counsel, that while the criminal trials are going on, your other civil suit cannot be really brought forward successfully,” he said.

“First they have to be dealt with and then we can focus on this.”

Mr. Virk said he will consult with his lawyer and his family before deciding whether or not to appeal the decision.

He said the family was primarily seeking an apology from the government.

Mr. Virk's lawyer, Roger Batchelor said the family was prepared to settle out of court.

Last year, B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal paid tribute to Reena's parents on the 10th anniversary of their daughter's death.

Mr. Oppal said Ms. Virk's parents, Suman and Manjit, have shown great courage throughout the ordeal and by forgiving one of the killers, Mr. Glowatski, when he was granted day parole last June.

“I don't know of many people that would have had that type of a response. I don't think I would have had if the same would have happened to one of my children,” Mr. Oppal said at the time.

Reena's death drew attention from around the world.

15:31ET 26-03-08

Source: website of the Globe and Mail
pointed out by Karol Karolak

Here is another article on overspending by children's aid, amounting to a plea for more money. There are 29 reader comments, all but four unfavorable to CAS, and one of those four is on their payroll. It's time for politicians to notice that there is a large grass-roots constituency for anyone opposing children's aid.

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CAS facing budget shortfall, may cut services

Doug Williamson, Windsor Star, Published: Monday, March 24, 2008

WINDSOR - The The Children's Aid Society of Windsor-Essex may have to cut programs due to a budget deficit, at a time when the slumping economy is stressing families and increasing demand for services.

The society will for the second fiscal year in a row have a budget shortfall of $3 million and will likely have to apply for yet another bank line of credit beginning in two months, executive director Bill Bevan said Monday.

Due to an uneven provincial funding formula, the local CAS did not receive so-called mitigation funding on Feb. 29 - something more than half the CAS agencies in Ontario did get, Bevan said. They split up a total of $34.5 million.

"We have a $3-million deficit. About half the agencies and more did receive money, the rest did not though," he said.

"About 46 of 53 agencies still have a deficit, we're one one of those."

He said the funding shortfall comes at a time of increased demand for services.

"We are beginning to see the examples of the economy we have here that's starting to take effect, and it's showing up in how people have been able to manage their children. So we're just starting to feel the economies of scale here in Windsor and Essex County."

One possibly threatened program is for youths and young adults 18 to 21 who are developmentally challenged, and who live with the Community Living agencies for Windsor and Essex County. Their board and treatment - costing about $1 million annually - comes out of the CAS budget.

"I've notified our community living partners that we're no longer able to fund this effective April 1," Bevan said.

In some parts of the province that funding comes directly from the province. He said discussions are underway to have the government fund this program locally as well.

But he said that one measure won't solve the local funding shortfall.

"It could potentially affect every program that we do."

A spokesman for the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies said Windsor is facing one of the higher deficits in the province and predicted demand for services will increase locally due to a slowdown in the economy.

"There are a couple of agencies across Ontario who are facing very large deficits, and Windsor is one of them, so they really need to review the services and supports provided to children and youth in their community," said Marcelo Gomez-Wiuckstern.

"The economy for sure will have a huge impact, mostly in the area of Windsor with the automobile industry being a little bit slower than before. When the economy slows we see a higher number of clients. They have to provide more services to more families because (families) deal with a lot more stress."

The Ontario association said provincial agencies will face a total budget shortfall of $60 million in the new fiscal year, including a $23-million shortfall carried over from 2007/08.

The Windsor agency's annual budget is $49.5 million, but last year it spent $52.5 million, forcing it go to the bank. When the new fiscal year begins April 1, the CAS will receive about $8 million from the province up front, which should help for two months.

"That takes the crisis out of the situation, but it doesn't resolve the long-term problem of underfunding child welfare in the province, and we're one of those affected," Bevan said.

"We'll slowly start to build the deficit again until we won't be able to pay it any longer at the end of February '09. We'll probably be another $3 million (in deficit) or so at that point," he said.

"We'll have been back to the bank starting in a couple of months, and that'll build to $3 million."

He said one of the reasons the local CAS did not get the mitigating funding inFebruary could have been because it didn't negotiate collective agreements until the second half of the fiscal year, and the government based its mitigation strategy on what an agency spent in the first six months of the year, when labour costs were lower.

"It looked like we would have been in budget."

COMMENTS ON THIS STORY

frank Mon, Mar 24, 08 at 06:15 PM
By the looks of that Taj Mahal building that the agency put up a few years ago and the fancy fixtures that were put in that buliding ,Its obvious to me that the CAS might have been a little too fat in the wallet anyways and maybe they need a review of their spending habits and a better accountability for the money they spend.That is a big beaurocratic unaccountable agency on riverside drive that hides behind government laws and feels it isnt accountable to the people.Too bad your agency is no different than any other in this city.Maybe its time too layoff some of the many CAS workers and better streamline your agency.The thing i have learned in life is that whenever you have a govt. agency that takes money from the taxpayers ,they are always short in funds and never look internally for savings until the powers above make them.Those being the people who write the cheques.

Windsor Family Mon, Mar 24, 08 at 06:36 PM
Well if you quit taking peoples kids and putting them in foster homes and paying the foster parents there would be money. How about keeping thse children with their parents and give them parenting skill to help them out.

concerned Mon, Mar 24, 08 at 06:58 PM
The CAS should stop taking in kids that are not nesscessary to be in custody, that should cut back on some expenses. Don't get me wrong their are people out there who should have their children taken. It's the ones who are working hard and someone spitefull calls in and makes complaints cause they have nothing better to do. Those people have lost their children, I have had my children in custody and almost wards of the court because of spitefull people. Those workers who don't have children do not understand life with children. My son has ADHD nad ODD so he wants attention. So when he tells stories at school the CAS are called and that is a waste of money to pay that guy to come out when all he had to do was look in the file and see that i was called on this before. Pay more attention is all I am saying to CAS. Kids who are not being beaten or harmed should not be taken away.

Hilary Mon, Mar 24, 08 at 07:11 PM
Once again the government shows us "family doesn't matter," especially if you live in Windsor or Essex County

oh well Mon, Mar 24, 08 at 07:30 PM
Oh well, the CAS does some good but gets involved in families that DO NOT need them. you spank your kid in a shopping mall, some tree hugger sees this calls CAS your done!. You neighbour gets pissed off at you and calls CAS, they are in your life for ever! just to " make sure" even tho there are no signs of abuse. All they do is grab kids and throw them in group homes where they are out of control, but they re-asure parents its the right thing to do. I think CAS should review its procedures, because what people dont know is they cash in on a kid until they are 18 years old, even tho the kids may not be ina home or anything they will do a check-up twice a year and the kids are still on the books and the government gives them $$. What a crock of BS! review it and run it properly

John Mon, Mar 24, 08 at 08:54 PM
Spending less money on a headquarters might have left some in the bank.

Ann Mon, Mar 24, 08 at 08:58 PM
Get rid of your wasteful and useless diversity training consultants and programs, and maybe spend your $ on the kids instead.

RJP Mon, Mar 24, 08 at 09:15 PM
Another bloated beuracracy. If they spent half as much on themselves and their grand offices this organization would not be in trouble year after year. Even when the local economy was booming this agency was in trouble. It has nothing to do with the economy. It has to do with the people involved running the place.

Taj Mahal Mon, Mar 24, 08 at 10:14 PM
Maybe when the city of Windsor was swimming in empty buildings and contractually paying for countless empty floors of the Canderal tower the City and CAS should have thought twice about building that multimillion dollar palace on Riverside drive. It is obvious they ran out of money when they built it. I have seen the inside and they have dime store furniture and cubicle dividers one step up from cardboard. I am least impressed with some of the so called social workers who are not parents themselves but achieved a C average in a BA. There are some nice ones with qualifications but some of them are a joke. Guess we can look them up by March 31st when the 2007 Sunshine list is fully published.

Joke Mon, Mar 24, 08 at 10:25 PM
Bears repeating: RIDICULOUS BUILDING ON PRIME LAND.

Ron Payne Mon, Mar 24, 08 at 10:34 PM
How much money do they pay out in settling bad faith lawsuits? That's the $64,000 dollar question? Ron Payne Welfare Legal Hamilton, Ontario E-mail welfarelegal2004@hotmail.com

Paula Ann Mon, Mar 24, 08 at 11:07 PM
The CAS and other agencies offer foster parents more money to suport children that should not always been taken away then welfare does to a single mom. U ask why some parents can't give the kids much go to school and complain.. U get just one over zellous worker and bam your kids are gone... yes this seems fair, I understand needing a better building then the one u were using on louis/assumption. but instead of building a NEW building, wouldn't it of been cheaper to fix the one that is not in use.. Now we have tax dollars going to a building that isn't even in use.. space that is being taken up-afordable housing something... Lobby the goverment for the money.. if it's coming to you make something happen.. Why should the tax payers pay for u to get a loan.. with our economy being as it is we NEED these services.. no matter the age, it's the children that come first.

Terry Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 12:46 AM
What is wrong with people these days? Everyone knows that families suffer through periods of economic stress and one look at the inner core of Windsor and you can see there are needs like the CAS. My apologies here but Windsor is one of the few cities in North America that I have been to that seems to have projects in almost every single neighbourhood. Check your statistics and you will find that poor families need agencies like the CAS. Building-envy or not, they serve a purpose. Let's see what tomorrow's budget in Ontario might do to help.

Marty Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 03:36 AM
Hopefully they will utilize the mediation program being rolled out across the province and save some legal fees and unnecesary aprehensions. An ounce of prevention...

Christina Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 08:48 AM
My niece had her kids taken away almost 2 years ago they are about to become wards of the crown. I admitt that when CAS got involved she was in a rough patch in her life and hanging around with some unsightly characters. Since CAS has taken her kids though she has done everything they have told her to do, she has gone to anger management, has drug testing every week which she tests negative for drugs, gone to parenting classes, has to attend church, AA Meetings NA meetings a course for batterd women and a bunch of other services which she does faithfully and has for the past year and a few months. She was even told even though she was clean and sober for more then a year she need to go to rehab. She has been to court now over 18 times never missed a court day she gets to visit her kids 2 times a week supervised at the CSA building while workers sit there and scribble down her every move and every comment, she has had to get a 3 bedroom apartment and maintain it which she has for almost a year only to be denied home visits and sleep overs with her kids. Nothing like making a person jump through hoops under the pretnece that it is all going to be OK and then told that their hired consullor recommends that she not get her kids back until she has done all this for over 2 years. Well after being in CSA for 2 years they become a ward of the crown and can be adopted. I am sick to my stomach over this, it is obvious to anybody that she has her kids interest at heart, sure she might have messed up in the past and it was for a brief moment of about 6 months that she was messing up but nobody looks at the fact that she has been raising them for 7 years before that and no problems but now after doing everything she is told to do she might never get them back. It just makes me sick. And look at all the money they have spent on her and her kids, 18 times to court in less then 2 years, come on consullors, and programs, and classes and assements and drug testing. What a waste, not to mention the money they give to the foster family for taking care of them, It just makes me sick sick sick.

MDW Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 09:00 AM
To Concered....Well put..this also happened to us with the school.but this was with children we adopted. Maybe childrens aid should head over to the welfare office and nail a few of these dead beat dads to take care of their kids.

show me the doh! Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 09:41 AM
i know someone who gets paid good money monthly to take these kids in. they don't care about the kids the way they should, it's all about the money! the husband has been out of work and is not looking because the cas pays them so well they do not need him to work.

GH Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 10:27 AM
I know first hand that CAS only takes children that absolutely need it! I am one of those foster parents you speak of and the children I hav etaken care of come from some of the most horrible situations I couldn't have even emagined.....and not only did they give these "parents" a sencond chance, they gave them a third as well....only to screw up the child even more! These children are our future and most of you people gripe about what these people are trying to do to make the comunity better. I agree, some of the money is mismanaged! But I suggest if you don't like what you see, stop complaining and get involved. Become a foster parent yourself if you think it is that easy! Trust me we don't get paid enough to deal with some of these issues! You are all so quick to point fingers but turn it arround and ask yourself what you can do instead!

gh Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 11:25 AM
I want to know who would take these kids in for free? Any volunteers???? I didn't think so!

ali Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 11:45 AM
why give them money, they'll just spend it on fancy stuff for themselves instead of the kids anyway. Have them give you a tour of their office furniture and computer systems. The place is fancier than our casino for the high rollers. waste, waste waste

sherry Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 11:56 AM
well if they stop taken kids that should be at home then they might have the money to help parents...instead the take kids away and offer no help what so ever..i had all four of my wonderful children taken away back in 99 and at no point and time did they ever offer any kind of help...not that my kids should have been taken away..i could say why they were taken away but i don't think my comment would show up...they make so many mistakes yet never seem to pay for them...the only people that pay are good parents like me and my husband and our children...i think CAS needs to step up to the plate and admit all the wrong they do and maybe people in Windsor would have more faith in the job they do...all i want from them is to admit the wrong and my life will e full...but because of them i have suffered so mush and my children have suffered growing up with out their parents...please post this...people nee to know that CAS is not the good people they clam to be.

what a joke Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 12:07 PM
if you look at all the children's aides in Canada you will realize that Windsor has the highest rate of children being taken away...Windsor cas also has the highest complains against them...makes one wonder what they really do with the money that's given to them....

JK Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 01:10 PM
The CAS has enough money to do it's job properly! Someone needs to go in there and clean house!! A large percentage of the staff is on stress leave due to mismanagement and/or milking the system. That leaves the rest of the staff to make up for the shortage making huge overtime salaries and increasing their stress levels. Either way get them back to work or get rid of the people on leaves!! I don't even want to start on the castle on the river!!

interested Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 02:48 PM
Like all government organizations, It is mostly about money and self-perpetuation Christina.

Worst Agency ever Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 05:03 PM
NOW they are suffering because their funding changed - they can't charge the province by the case - which is why they were out of control before, with people picketing and constant complaints. Not coincidental that they have this crazy building on the drive. The director should be ashamed of himself.

Dean Robinson Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 05:38 PM
Afew years back there was a gentleman that drove his truck into the building and killed himself. theres the real story in Winsor. When will the general public wake u, the CAS is a lobby group with its hand out for the tax dollars of hard working people. Child protection is a must but the CAS has proven that they are not society for the job. Its time to overhaul the system. http://sarniasgun.proboards83.com/index.cgi?

seriously now. Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 06:45 PM
Here's a nifty idea -- STOP OVERPAYING WORKERS THAT DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD!!!! That agency is so corrupt, it's unreal. I should really get in touch with whoever is responsible for running it. There are workers with 'wet t-shirt' pics online. workers with pics of drinking and driving online. Half the workers are nothing more than hardcore partiers. They're overpaid and barely do anything. VERY few are even worth having - VERRRRRRRRRRRY few deserve their jobs.

Commission?!? Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 06:59 PM
I think intake workers for CAS work off of commission. That's why they're so anxious to take any child they see out in public with a parent. That's how they act, at least. ;)

GET OVER IT Tue, Mar 25, 08 at 07:01 PM
It's obvious that any negative comments directed towards CAS are from people who's children have probably been rightfully removed by CAS.

Source: Windsor Star at canada.com

Allison Quets, the mother who fled to Canada with her twins, has been ordered to pay the legal fees of the couple who wrested custody of the children through the courts. Quets was solvent before giving birth, but after losing her career and paying a half million dollars to her own lawyers, is now unemployed and penniless and living with her own mother. This financial burden ensures that she will remain permanently in poverty. Could she get out of debt by going back to work? What mother could work hard to pay the kidnappers of her own children?

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Allison Quets

Judge Criticizes Quets' Custody Action

Posted: Mar. 24 3:21 p.m., Updated: Mar. 24 6:26 p.m.

A judge has ordered a birth mother who kidnapped twins from their adoptive parents to pay the couple's legal fees, saying the woman pursued flimsy claims against them in court.

Allison Quets pleaded guilty last fall to international parental kidnapping and was placed on probation for five years. She spent more than eight months in jail before agreeing to plead guilty.

Quets took the twins, who were 17 months old at the time, on Dec. 22, 2006, from their adoptive parents, Kevin and Denise Needham, following an approved visit. Authorities apprehended her a week later in Ottawa, Ontario, and returned the twins to the Apex couple.

She has fought their adoption for more than two years, saying she was ill after suffering medical problems during her pregnancy and that she signed adoption papers under duress.

After Florida trial and appellate courts terminated Quets' parental rights in the case, she pursued the case in Wake County. She filed suit last fall to regain visitation rights, stating the adoption was contingent upon her "retaining a continuing and familiar role" in the lives of the children after the adoption was finalized.

District Judge Anne Salisbury dismissed her claims in January, saying she couldn't seek visitation because her parental rights had been terminated.

Salisbury last week filed an order requiring Quets to pay the Needhams' legal fees in the Wake County lawsuit, ruling that Quets filed the suit – and even misled her attorney – knowing she had few facts and legal arguments on her side.

"While (Quets') purpose has always been to resume contact with her biological children, the practical effect has been the creation of a financial and emotional burden on the (Needhams)," Salisbury wrote in the 17-page decision.

Quets plans to appeal the ruling, according to her attorney, Mike Harrell. She also is appealing Salisbury's January ruling ending her lawsuit.

The Needhams' attorney, Deborah Sandlin, has until April 1 to provide a breakdown of the couple's legal expenses in the case.

Source: website of WRAL

Here is a case we will be hearing a lot more about. Florida mother Celeste Grace Minardi was visiting her son, named in later reports as Bradley Driscoll, at a psychiatrist's office and stabbed him, leaving him critically wounded. This one rare event by a disturbed mother could well become the pretext for the construction of visitation facilities in which parents and children are separated by bullet-proof glass.

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Aunt: Mom Who Stabbed Son Also Threatened Family

Special To TBO.com by EAMONN KNEESHAW Celeste Grace Minardi is placed into the back of a Largo Police Department cruiser.

By NEIL JOHNSON of The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 23, 2008

The aunt of a boy police say was stabbed and slashed by his mother in a psychiatry office Saturday told a judge this morning that Celeste Grace Minardi has threatened other family members before.

Jacqi Yeager also said during the mother's first appearance hearing Sunday in Pinellas County that family members were afraid of Minardi.

Celeste Grace Minardi

On Saturday morning, Minardi, 55, was in a court-ordered visit with her 15-year-old son at a psychiatry office on Seminole Boulevard in Largo when she pulled a pair of knives from a purse and began hacking at her son, Largo police said.

The boy was stabbed in the abdomen, severely injuring his intestines. In addition he had a pair of slashes across the throat, one 8 inches long, another 3 inches long. The boy also had a 4-inch gash over his right eye.

Police said Minardi, after giving the boy a deck of cards and bottle of cologne, pulled a 15 1/2 inch decorative dagger and 12-inch drywall knife from her purse and attacked her son.

The boy was taken to St. Petersburg's Bayfront Medical Center and was in critical condition after emergency surgery, said Largo police Sgt. Mark Young. The family asked that further details of his condition not be released, the hospital said.

Mirandi, of 1202 Fairway Dr., had been visiting her son at the office about twice a month for the past three years, Young said. The boy's father has custody.

Police did not release the boy's name.

Minardi is the ex-wife of Timothy Driscoll, 47, a bankruptcy lawyer in St. Petersburg. Court records show they filed for divorce in 2004 and had one child together.

Minardi has no criminal record and has never shown any violent behavior, Young said.

This visit did not appear to be different, he said. The mother and son were sitting on a couch. A nurse was about six feet away.

After the attack, the boy tried to run away but collapsed. A doctor ordered Minardi to drop the knives, pulled her from the scene and secured the knives, the sergeant said.

Young said that when police arrived, the teen was covered in blood and slipping in and out of consciousness.

"He told me, 'My mom stabbed me,'" Young said. "Then he looks up at me and said, 'I don't ever want to see her again,' and then he passed out."

Minardi would not say why she attacked the boy and would only answer yes or no when asked whether she understood her rights as she was being arrested, Young said.

She was charged with first-degree attempted murder and booked into Pinellas County Jail shortly before noon Saturday, jail records show. Two additional charges of carrying a concealed weapon were pending, Young said.

Source: website of the Tampa Bay Tribune

Once again, when you see a young mother caring for a baby in the Toronto area, call the cops immediately.

Police are not saying why they want this pair, 16-year-old mother Shamika Palmer and her 4-week-old son Tristan Oldham, but separating mother and child is a good possibility.

Children of single teenaged mothers can truly benefit from outside assistance, though police have kept us in the dark about whether mother Shamika is on her own. In a sane world we would urge the mother to accept help. In this case, provided the mother has some way of getting necessities for the baby, the child may be better off staying out of sight.

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March 23, 2008

Teen mom, baby missing

By CHRIS DOUCETTE, SUN MEDIA, The Toronto Sun

Toronto Police are scouring several neighbourhoods across the city in search of a teen mother and her baby missing for several days.

The Catholic Children's Aid Society became concerned for the safety of the 16-year-old and her 4-week-old son after an incident in Scarborough last week, police said.

"We would very much like to speak to this young mother," Sgt. Ken Boyle, of 31 Division, said yesterday. Police are unable to say what caused the CCAS to become worried. "All I know is that she was in a place she shouldn't have been."

Shamika Palmer and son Tristan Oldham, born Feb. 24, were last seen Tuesday in the area of 3171 Eglinton Ave. E.

The teen is known to frequent the areas of Markham Rd. and Eglinton Ave. E., Lawrence Ave. W. and Allen Rd., and Jane St. and Finch Ave. W., police said.

Source: Toronto Sun from canoe.com

The US bill of rights protects freedom of the press, but that means nothing in family court. Judge Susan Orr Henderson barred an Indianapolis TV station, WXIN channel 59, from airing an interview with aggrieved parent Mark McGaha.

Through the internet you can still see the story on website