Girl given ‘last chance’ at bail after breaches

A 16-year-old Brandon girl was given a “last chance” at bail after repeatedly breaching court orders while awaiting a robbery trial in March.

“She’s demonstrating that she does not have respect for the administration of justice as she continues to reoffend and with these charges,” prosecutor Easton Lacey, an articling student with the Crown Attorney’s Office, said in Brandon provincial court on Thursday.

The Crown opposed the teen’s release on the grounds that she would pose a risk to the public.

The teen is scheduled for trial in March 2026 after she was allegedly involved in a violent four-on-one robbery on March 1 at The Town Centre mall in Brandon, which left a woman with multiple injuries, Lacey said.

The teen was arrested and later released with consent from the Crown under conditions that she abides by a curfew.

Lacey said on July 11, one of the workers at the teen’s foster home reported that the teen was breaching her curfew. Police went to the foster home to confirm she wasn’t there and issued a warrant for her arrest.

The warrant was executed four days later when staff at the home reported she had returned.

Police again received a call on Wednesday that the teen was breaching her curfew and at 4 p.m. received a report that she was last seen downtown.

Police found and arrested the teen without incident.

Lacey said the teen had a number of opportunities to follow her conditions.

“She’s currently on supervised probation for an assault that she was placed on in January,” Lacey said.

Lacey said she is on another one-year supervised probation order for failing to comply with court orders, which had been amended into one charge for six breaches between March and June.

“She’s now pending on three failures to comply and a robbery charge.”

Lacey said the Crown would only consider releasing the teen if a responsible person was included in the bail plan.

Defence lawyer Jonathan Richert said he didn’t believe that was necessary, since the staff at the foster home fill that role by being obligated to report to police if the teen breaches. The home, he noted, is staffed every day and night of the week.

“She’s admitted to me candidly that she struggles with alcohol use,” Richert said. “We acknowledge that there’s been multiple breaches by her. It sounds to me like they’re all related to her issues with (alcohol).”

He said the foster workers told him that the teen and her sister will often visit their biological mother and that they are possibly drinking alcohol and doing drugs with her, which causes her to make “poor decisions.”

“When she’s sober, she seems like a nice enough young lady and promises to abide by her conditions, but I think all that goes out the window when she’s in a the state of mind that she’s in that I’ve described,” he said.

Richert suggested a 24-hour curfew, which means the teen would have to stay at home unless she has specific permission.

“We’re hopeful that the court would consider a last-chance kind of release,” he said.

Judge Hewitt-Michta said she was persuaded to give the teen one more chance but made it clear that if she breaches or reoffends, she will remain in custody until her trial date next March.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com