Woman denies sexually abusing grandchildren

A woman denied allegations of sexually abusing two of her grandchildren on Tuesday in Brandon’s Court of King’s Bench before the Crown and defence lawyers gave their closing arguments in the trial.

The grandmother, 51, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual interference for allegedly sexually abusing a girl and boy while watching TV in her bedroom between August 2019 and December 2021.

The girl is now eight years old and the boy is 11.

A publication ban protecting the children’s identities prevents The Brandon Sun from naming them or the accused.

The grandmother testified that she didn’t watch TV with the children “very often” because they were doing other activities such as crafts, making forts or having picnics. If she was in the bedroom watching TV with them, it was only “for a short period of time,” she said.

The woman said there were times when she touched her granddaughter’s genitals when she was two years old because she was changing her soiled diaper, but “it was not done inappropriately.”

She would also check her grandson’s pants, as he occasionally wore a pull-up at age four because he would have accidents, and would touch his butt to wipe it clean after he went to the bathroom, the woman said.

She denied Crown attorney Reid Girard’s suggestion that she would stick her hands down the children’s pants to check if they had an accident and that she had sexually abused the kids.

The grandmother said she sold her house in August 2019 to move about two hours closer to her daughter’s family in a rural community in southwestern Manitoba because her daughter was having “personal issues.”

She said it was a “big risk” to move there given that she had a strained relationship with her daughter, but she “wanted to be there to help her.”

The grandmother moved into a house about two blocks away from her daughter’s family and would babysit the children almost daily because she hadn’t secured a job yet, she said.

In October 2019, she started working as an educational assistant at her grandchildren’s elementary school and still had them over for visits at her house “quite frequently.”

She said the relationship with her daughter became even more strained over the years.

The last time the children came over to her house for a visit was around Christmas in December 2021, she said. Her daughter stopped speaking to her shortly after that until the accusations were made in January 2023, the woman said.

The grandmother said she still saw her grandchildren every day at school and wouldn’t initiate conversations with them, knowing it might upset her daughter.

Her grandchildren would approach her during her recess supervision on the school playground and ask why they didn’t visit her anymore, she said.

“They would run and jump into my arms and tell me how much they missed me,” the woman said.

In January 2023, she went to her daughter’s house to ask if the kids wanted to come over for a playdate. The grandmother said her daughter was “screaming and yelling” and told her the children didn’t love her anymore, so she walked away.

The woman described how she interacted with both of her grandchildren at school on Valentine’s Day that same year when students were going skating at a local rink.

The grandmother helped the girl find skates when she was crying about how she didn’t have any and skated with the boy for two minutes on the ice, she said. She alleged the boy asked if he could go skating with her in the future because he had fun.

During closing arguments, defence lawyer Anthony Dawson said the grandmother provided an “honest” and “believable” testimony.

Dawson said his client’s daughter used her testimony on Monday as an opportunity to “air out her many grievances” against her mother and that she coached her children to lie about what their grandmother allegedly did to them.

He said there were issues with both children’s testimonies, which included inconsistencies with where and how many times the girl said she had been touched by the grandmother in the bedroom.

“These are not just minor inconsistencies, the kind that you might expect to catch when hearing testimony from children of their age … These are major aspects of the allegations that have changed,” he said.

Every change between the girl’s initial statement and her testimony “painted my client as even worse,” Dawson said.

Girard said it wasn’t “shocking” to hear minor inconsistencies in the children’s testimonies given how much time has passed since the alleged incidents occurred, how old they were and how old they are now.

The girl and boy were clear in their testimony that their grandmother “put her hands down their pants and touched the parts of their body that they described,” he said.

The Crown argued that the touching was sexual in nature because it happened in her bedroom with her hand going underneath the children’s clothes and wasn’t in the context of a diaper change or with bathing.

Justice Sandra Zinchuk reserved her decision until May 14.

» tadamski@brandonsun.com