Fredericton mother sentenced to 9½ years in prison after confining, abusing daughter
CBC
Warning: This story includes details of child abuse that may be disturbing to readers.
A Fredericton mother has been sentenced to 9½ years in prison after singling out her seven-year-old daughter and subjecting her to violence "at the extreme end of the scale."
Judge Natalie LeBlanc's sentencing decision described a girl who was confined to a room, not allowed to get food or water and was repeatedly beaten and burned by her mother.
By the time police came to the home last summer, the girl was noticeably underweight, covered in bruises, burn marks and scars and required emergency surgery on an ear that looked like an inflated water balloon.
The girl slept in a room with a tattered mattress on the floor, while her siblings slept nearby on beds with clean linens.
"It is not a stretch to say that the record establishes that [the girl] was treated vastly different from other children, assaulted and failed by [her mother] in almost every way possible," LeBlanc told provincial court in Fredericton on Wednesday.
"To this day, no credible reason or explanation was provided to the court" that would ever have been understandable.
The woman, whose identity is subject to a publication ban, pleaded guilty to six charges, including confining the girl, assaulting her with a weapon (a metal rod), aggravated assault and failing to provide the necessities of life. She also admitted to assaulting two other children.
The mother received credit for 503 days for the time she's served on remand since last year, leaving her to serve a little more than eight years in prison.
Crown prosecutor Gwynne Hearn asked LeBlanc to sentence the woman to 8½ years, while defence lawyer T.J. Burke argued for 6½ years.
LeBlanc went a step further by sentencing the mother to 9½, saying the evidence, especially pictures of the girl's injuries and the room where she lived "illustrate the severity of the violence, failures and confinements."
Given the nature of the charges, the judge said there weren't many examples in New Brunswick or even across Canada to guide her sentencing decision. The cases presented to the court either weren't as serious or "ended catastrophically in death."
In her sentencing decision, LeBlanc described at least 10 complaints to the Department of Social Development, alleging neglect or abuse of the children. The information comes from a summary the department provided for the pre-sentence report.
In 2018, two separate concerns were reported to the department alleging neglect and lack of supervision. The department found both claims substantiated.
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