Woman accused in drowning of girl at Alberta lake had been under house arrest

A bail hearing has heard that a woman accused in the drowning death of a five-year-old girl in an Alberta lake didn't know the child and was supposed to be under house arrest.

A bail hearing has heard that a woman accused in the drowning death of a five-year-old girl in an Alberta lake didn't know the child and was supposed to be under house arrest.

Mary Quinn, 35, is charged with failing to provide the necessaries of life after the girl was found dead last month at Wabamun Lake, west of Edmonton.

Justice Rosanna Saccomani called the circumstances of the case "absolutely shocking." She said she would deliver a decision on bail next week.

There is a court-ordered publication ban on identifying the child but not on details from Wednesday's hearing in provincial court in Stony Plain, Alta.

Prosecutor John Schmidt told the hearing that Quinn was under house arrest as part of a conditional sentencing order for pushing her way into a stranger's home, armed with a gardening tool, while intoxicated.

He said Quinn didn't get permission from her bail supervisor to go to the lake on Oct. 13.

Schmidt said Quinn and the child didn't know each other, and the accused didn't get permission from the child's family to take her out on the lake in a canoe.