By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiative
(Note that this story contains detailed descriptions of child abuse.)
On April 29, 2019, paramedics found a seven-year-old girl in her father and stepmother’s home in Granby, near death after her whole body – including her nose and mouth – was covered in adhesive tape. The girl – whose name is under a publication ban – died a day later, and her case made national headlines.
Further investigation found that the girl was malnourished and had other unexplained injuries. The girl’s father and stepmother were arrested – the stepmother was sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder while the father pleaded guilty to unlawful confinement. Only after the end of the legal proceedings could coroner Géhane Kamel carry out her own investigation into the girl’s death. Kamel’s report, released last week, laid out a panoply of communication failures and missed signals in the months and years leading up to the day she died.
“Even though some parts of this report are difficult to read, it is my duty to give this child a voice,” Kamel wrote in the report. “Help is available for those who need it.”
Kamel’s investigation found that the girl was an “intelligent child, whose potential was hidden behind difficult behaviour.” She was raised by her paternal grandparents until she was three, due to a history of “parental instability,” before being put in the care of her father and stepmother. Eight months before her death, she was diagnosed with an attachment disorder, “which can manifest after some parental behaviour (negligent, coercive or violent) or a major event such as a [parental] breakup, grieving or a change in caregivers.” After a series of attempts to run away from home, her family doctor had recommended her father and stepmother lock the door at night, a method Kamel describes as “questionable.”
The investigation found that both adults responsible for the child’s care tended to dismiss her behaviour as manipulative or capricious, and warned other adults against taking it at face value. Her father seemed to alternate between proactively seeking help managing his daughter’s condition, and disappearing off the radar of social services agencies. In school – when she was sent there – the girl complained about being hungry, stole food, had meltdowns and once told a teacher she didn’t want to go home. A year before her death, a mental health support worker was brought in after she expressed suicidal thoughts. Her case was flagged to Quebec’s directorate of youth protection (DPJ) at least three times; despite what now seems like “a major red flag” in Kamel’s words, school officials discussed having her homeschooled. “For children at risk of neglect in their living environment, it is strongly recommended to prioritize in-school education, to maintain a safety net,” Kamel wrote. She also flagged communication difficulties between the school, the DPJ and health and social services professionals handling the child’s case.
In November 2018, the police were called. In an eight-minute interview at a local police station, the child told the officers, “What happens at home stays at home.”
“This interview raises many fundamental questions. First, is it really the most appropriate way to keep a child safe to meet them in a police station, a place often perceived as intimidating, even threatening, for younger children?” Kamel wrote. “Can we really be surprised that she didn’t want to speak?”
Kamel also observed that in the months and years leading up to the girl’s death, she was seen by a succession of DPJ intervention workers “with no real cohesion” to their actions, and that there was little co-ordination between the government agencies responsible for helping her. “It is necessary to strengthen ties between the various authorities to facilitate access to the intervention history of children in the care of the DPJ. Current systems do not guarantee an effective safety net,” she wrote.
In May 2019, a month after the girl’s death, the Quebec government launched the Laurent Commission on children’s rights and youth protection, which, Kamel noted, led to legislative changes meant to improve information sharing between agencies responsible for child welfare and improve training for DPJ personnel and daycare educators, and to the creation of a permanent commissioner for children’s rights and wellbeing. The DPJ de l’Estrie, she noted, took the Laurent commission’s recommendations particularly to heart.
Kamel recommended that the Ministry of Health and Social Services put in place a single provincial registry for child protection, ensure that every child followed by the DPJ has an individual service plan, improve the funding and coordination of frontline psychosocial services, improve communication with the public prosecutor’s office where child abuse cases are concerned, improve child abuse awareness training for doctors and encourage the presence of social workers in schools. She called on the Ministry of Education to take stronger measures to prevent service interruptions for children at risk of abuse.
Coroners investigate thousands of deaths in the province every year – every apparent suicide, murder or death by accident or negligence; every road accident fatality; every unexplained death of a pregnant woman or young child; and every death in a public institution such as a prison or rehabilitation centre is investigated; so is every death where the cause isn’t immediately clear. The resulting reports are concise, laying out the known facts about how a person lived and died, and ruling on a cause of death. Many reports, but not all, contain recommendations about how to prevent similar losses of life. Kamel added an unusual element to that formula – a letter addressed to the little girl.
“You left far too soon, swept away by the injustice and silence of a world that should have protected you,” Kamel wrote. “Your wings were stolen before you even had time to spread them. You had the right to grow, to run, to dream, to laugh. You had the right to love, to gentleness, to a life filled with tenderness and safety. That right was taken away from you. From up there, if you see us, know that we have not forgotten you. Your name … resonates like a call to never look away again, to open our arms and our hearts to the children who cry out in silence.”