By Patrick Burles - @PatrickBurles on Twitter

Mother gets house arrest for failing to protect toddler from abuse

Jun 22, 2018 | 5:19 PM

LETHBRIDGE – “Her affection for an adult trumped her affection for her child.”

Crown prosecutor Clayton Giles made that statement to the court, while dealing with the case of a Lethbridge mother who failed to report abuse to her two-year-old child.

The 28-year-old woman – who cannot be named to protect the identity of the child – pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to provide the necessaries of life Friday afternoon, June 22.

A joint submission between the Crown and defence was then presented to the court and ultimately accepted, for a sentence of two years-less-a-day under a Conditional Sentence Order. For the first nine-months of the CSO, she will be under house-arrest, only leaving for work and for four hours a week for things like groceries. During the last 15-months she will be bound by a curfew and will need to seek counselling for things like domestic violence, substance abuse, and self-esteem. She is also prohibited from consuming drugs or alcohol for the entire sentence.

“She is not going to have a role in this young boy’s life… and that has affected her,” said defence lawyer Scott Hadford, who noted that his client has surrendered her parental rights to the child. “It is devastating to her.”

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Hadford added that the woman had been dealing with an addiction to methamphetamine but has now been sober for nine months.

Agreed statement of facts

It was explained to the court that the woman had developed a relationship with a 32-year-old man and that he abused the child over a two-week period in September of 2017 (more on that below).

It came to the attention of authorities when an upstairs neighbour called police, reporting that they heard a child in distress and what sounded like an angry adult. Police found the child to be suffering from significant bruising and took him to the hospital, where it was noted that he had sustained bruising to his face and feet, and lacerations to the inside of his mouth and buttocks.

“The injuries to the child clearly would have been obvious,” said Giles, as he discussed the woman’s failure to seek medical care for her son. He added that even if she didn’t know what had happened, such injuries still necessitated a visit to a doctor.

“Had the police not attended, this may have gone undiscovered,” Giles stated.

While being questioned by authorities on the condition of her child, she reported that she thought he might have tripped over the dog.

Arriving at the joint submission and sentence for the other individual

In discussing the sentencing proposal, Giles said they were willing to withdraw an assault charge against the woman, after her boyfriend pleaded guilty to a charge of assault causing bodily harm last March. That resulted in a prison sentence of approximately 33 months.

He claimed responsibility for all of the injuries inflicted on the child.

Giles noted during sentencing on that matter that it appeared to be a form of “misguided correction.”

Fraud charge also addressed

Following her sentencing on the matter involving her child, the woman also pleaded guilty to a charge of fraud under $5,000 for an incident in Medicine Hat.

She admitted that while living there in 2016, she deposited a number of empty envelopes into her account at Scotia Bank, then proceeded to withdraw a total of $1050.

For that she received three-years of probation, during which she must pay back the money.