Mom who didn’t report baby’s abuse gets jail

By Delon Shurtz - Lethbridge Herald on August 19, 2023.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com

A Lethbridge woman who didn’t report her husband’s abuse against their baby daughter, has been sentenced to a jail sentence of two years less a day.
The mother, who can’t be named to protect the identity of the baby girl, was sentenced Friday in Lethbridge court of justice, where Justice Gregory Maxwell accepted the joint recommendation by the Crown and defence, and said the mother failed to fulfil her parental responsibility to protect her baby.
“I recognize that she didn’t inflict this harm, but the trust comes because you’re the mom, and that means the law requires positive action,” Maxwell said. “When you recognized the child has need of protection – the necessities of life – you’re entrusted to provide those, and when you don’t, that’s a serious offence.”
The 31-year-old woman pleaded guilty in June to one count of failure to provide the necessaries of life, but sentencing was adjourned to allow time for the preparation of a pre-sentence report, which provided the court with the woman’s personal circumstances and background to help determine a fit sentence.
Following her guilty plea June 16, Crown Prosecutor Drew Gillespie, reading from an agreed statement of facts, told court the six-week-old baby had sustained at the hands of her father significant injuries, including bleeding on the brain, brain injury, and abusive head trauma, the latter likely caused by blunt force injury or shaking.
Police discovered the injured baby on Jan. 18 after they were asked to go to the couples’ home for a welfare check on a child who was being abused and assaulted by her father. The mother and child were sleeping, but police could tell the child was having trouble breathing and was in medical distress.
The baby was taken to the hospital, but enroute her condition deteriorated and she suffered a seizure.
“Upon her arrival at the Chinook Regional Hospital, the child’s oxygen levels dropped and she had to be intubated,” Gillespie explained.
After doctors realized she had a brain bleed, the baby was transported by air ambulance to Alberta Childrens’ Hospital in Calgary, where an examination revealed the head trauma and other injuries, including severely injured spinal ligaments, bleeding around the spinal cord, bleeding from both eyes, and a detached retina in the left eye.
“Doctors were not certain that the child would survive her injuries when she had first arrived at the hospital,” Gillespie said. He noted the “mechanism” of the injuries would have required more force than that of an automobile accident.
The 52-year-old father pleaded guilty June 23 to charges of aggravated assault and failure to provide the necessaries of life, and earlier this month he was sentenced to seven years in prison.
The father repeatedly assaulted his daughter by slapping her in the head and face, bouncing her on the bed and couch, pushing her head and chest into the couch and bed, and trying to force a bottle into her mouth.
The child was discharged from hospital on April 20, but remains under medical care. Her prognosis is uncertain, and will only be known as she grows older, but doctors believe she may live with cerebral palsy as a result of her brain injuries.
During the father’s sentencing Aug. 4, Justice Kristin Ailsby said the latest update on the child’s condition indicates that even minor health issues, such as a low-grade fever or a mild cold, push her into medical distress which require emergency transport and lengthy hospital stays.
“So at this time the only thing we truly know about the baby girl’s future is that she has a loving caregiver ensuring her needs are met, and a competent medical team engaged in her care,” Ailsby said.
The mother told authorities she wished she had taken the baby to the hospital sooner, but she didn’t call police because she feared Child and Family Services would take the baby away from her.
“By denying her this right to medical care, it will have life-long implications on this young child,” Gillespie said Friday. “She will forever be altered because of the accused’s actions.”
Calgary lawyer John Oman acknowledged his client’s failure to protect her daughter, but pointed out she never abused the child. And although she witnessed some of the abuse – and would stop her husband – most of it occurred while she was out of the house.
Oman said the mother was living on the streets and at the homeless shelter with her husband before they were able to move into a house, and she suffers from substance abuse and lack of life skills.
“(She) certainly needs guidance in life,” Oman said, noting that the three-year probation period ordered by the judge after she is released from custody should provide some help.
Although sentenced to 729 days in jail, the woman was given credit for the equivalent of 320 days she spent in remand custody following her arrest in January, leaving her with 409 days – about 13 1/2 months – to serve.

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