Man earns supervised probation after leaving kids alone

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This article was published 12/05/2022 (1392 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A 37-year-old Brandon man will have to deal with one year of supervised probation after he admitted in court on Thursday that he put his young children in danger by leaving them unsupervised for an extended period of time.

Matthew Garrick pleaded guilty to violating Section 18.3 of the Child and Family Services Act, which specifies that an offence is committed if “an act or omission of the person causes a child to be a child in need of protection.”

Garrick violated the CFS Act on Aug. 28, 2021, when local police were called to his residence on Princess Avenue around 10:20 p.m. after receiving reports from a concerned family member that his children could be in danger.

“Once inside, police located a newborn infant lying on the couch within the apartment … swaddled within a blanket, as well as a one-year-old child lying in a crib in another room,” Crown attorney Andrew Sieklicki said on Thursday. “No adults were located within or around the residence.”

One of Garrick’s neighbours told the police they hadn’t seen the children’s parents since around 2 p.m. that day.

After the children were removed by CFS, Garrick and his partner eventually returned to their residence and were arrested by police on Sept. 12.

While in custody, the couple gave conflicting stories about their whereabouts on Aug. 28, although it became obvious to police that drugs were involved.

Defence attorney Jessie Brar told the court on Thursday that his client has had addiction issues since he moved to Brandon, got involved with the co-accused in the case and started using methamphetamine.

“Around the time that the offences took place, he was using meth daily, and he’s described that period of his life as three, four times a day, every day, for months on end [he would use the drug],” Brar said.

However, now that Garrick has spent several months behind bars, Brar said his client has had time to think and sober up and wants to atone for past mistakes.

The Crown, the defence and Garrick agreed that one year of supervised probation is a fitting punishment, since the 37-year-old must abstain from contacting his children (except when authorized by CFS), undergo a drug-treatment program and take part in parenting courses throughout this time.

“He understands that he has a long way to go with respect to taking some of these courses from the addictions perspective and parenting, but he wants to build himself up to be a present and responsible and good role model for his children,” Brar said.

Garrick reiterated this point on Thursday, telling Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta via a live video feed that he plans on staying out of trouble in the hopes of regaining custody of his children one day.

“I made a horrible mistake and I feel really crappy about it,” he said. “And being in custody has given me a lot of time to think about what I did and it will never, ever happen again.”

Hewitt-Michta accepted the conditions of Garrick’s probation, although she used her closing remarks on Thursday to remind him of the serious nature of his neglect.

“I give you lots of credit for the guilty plea today, rather than … putting this through a trial. I like that you took responsibility for this,” she said. “But I sure agree with you that this was a horrible choice, just so dangerous, and it should keep you awake at night thinking about all the ways that this could have gone wrong in terms of your children’s safety.”

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