Mom admits being too slow to get help for baby

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This article was published 06/10/2016 (3431 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A mother has pleaded guilty to failing to provide necessaries of life by being too slow to get medical help for her injured four-month-old daughter.

A doctor determined the injuries were the result of shaken baby syndrome.

However, the mom has maintained that she isn’t the one who inflicted those injuries. Rather, she took responsibility for being too slow to act after finding her daughter in physical distress.

“She did not act urgently, did not act quickly enough, to take her to medical professionals,” Crown attorney Deidre Badcock said in Brandon Court of Queen’s Bench on Wednesday as Justice John Menzies sentenced the mother to one day in jail and three years probation.

The Brandon Sun can’t name the woman because of a publication ban in place intended to prevent the victim from being identified.

Originally, the mother, now 25 years old, was charged with aggravated assault.

However, Menzies — who previously presided over a child protection case in which he made the girl a permanent ward of Child and Family Services — agreed with Badcock when she said the mother would have undoubtedly been acquitted at trial on the original charge.

Badcock described how, in March 2014, the mother took her girl to the Brandon hospital emergency room, where it was noted there were cuts under the child’s chin. There were also faint bruises under her eyes, and she was dehydrated and unresponsive.

The girl was flown to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg and her parents were interviewed extensively by police and CFS workers, who were provided a variety of possible explanations.

The injuries may have been caused by a friend, it was suggested, or the mother may have fallen during pregnancy, or a cat may have jumped on the baby’s bassinet.

The mom told CFS workers that her daughter would often hold her breath, and that’s what she believed to have happened. To snap the girl out of it, she would pinch her.

Badcock said that the night before she was brought to hospital, the girl had thrown up and didn’t seem right. Two nights prior to that, she had been screaming and she was mostly unresponsive the next day.

It was also determined the girl had retinal hemorrhages, bruises to her head and bleeding in the brain. There were older bruises to her upper arms and inner arm, bruises on her legs, cuts under her tongue and scarring under her chin.

A doctor determined that certain injuries were caused by repetitive acceleration and deceleration consistent with shaken baby syndrome. The physician also ruled out some of the explanations provided to CFS.

Badcock said that the girl, now 34 months old, is developmentally delayed and is learning to walk, although she is walking without leg braces, which is better than doctors expected.

It’s too early to tell what the long-term effects of her injuries may be, Badcock said.

What remains unsolved is who inflicted the harm in the first place.

“We can’t prove who caused the abuse here,” Badcock said.

Menzies noted that during the previous child protection hearing, he had decided that he wasn’t prepared to find that the mother had injured the child.

Defence lawyer Ryan Fawcett said the father had been caring for the girl prior to leaving for work, as the mother slept.

Fawcett said that, as primary caregiver, his client took responsibility for failing to provide necessaries by being to slow to get medical help.

He said that the mom awoke to find her daughter in trouble and believed she was having an apnea fit. The mother called her husband, who had left for work, but wasn’t able to reach him.

Fawcett said it was evident the girl was in trouble but there were no apparent injuries to explain, and the mother panicked.

She moved the girl’s legs in a cycling motion, believing it would help. When the girl’s lips turned blue, the mom called her own mother for advice.

The girl’s grandmother came over and they went to the hospital, but the delay in getting the girl to medical help was about an hour.

“Her biggest regret in life is not calling 911 immediately,” Fawcett said of the mother.

He said his client was abused by her then-husband, and feared she would be blamed for what had happened. She’d also been the victim of abuse in a prior relationship, and abused as a child.

She has post-traumatic stress disorder, post-concussion syndrome, anxiety and depression.

Menzies said he believed that the abuse led to a lack of self-confidence that contributed to the mother’s failure to protect her injured daughter.

Her court appearance counts as her one day in “jail.” She will now begin her three years probation.

The girl’s mother was the only one who was ever charged. After court, when asked about any potential charges against the father, Badcock said the Crown had conceded it can’t prove who injured the girl.

In court Badcock had noted that inconsistencies in the parents’ statements had posed a problem.

» ihitchen@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @IanHitchen