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Friday, April 07, 2006

1:15pm...

... still not too much from the courthouse, but there probably won't be illegal confinement charges in regards to Jeffrey's sister...

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's the latest from CP wire:
Verdict expected in Jeffrey Baldwin case
Grandparents charged with first-degree murder in child’s starvation death
Apr. 7, 2006. 12:55 PM
CANADIAN PRESS

An Toronto judge has spent more than 90 minutes summarizing the charges against a Toronto couple accused of letting their grandson starve to death.
But there is still no verdict.

Justice David Watt is expected to make the verdict known later this afternoon.

Norman Kidman and Elva Bottineau have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Jeffrey Baldwin in 2002.

Jeffrey was confined to a locked, cold bedroom for up to 14 hours a day, and made to eat out of a bowl with his fingers.

Jeffrey was just 21 pounds when he died of starvation and pneumonia.

Anonymous said...

At mid-afternoon, Justice David Watt was still reading his decision to the packed courtroom. Star reporter Nick Pron tells thestar.com that the decision itself is a handwritten document in the region of 500 pages.

From:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&pubid=968163964505&cid=1144404194000&col=968705899037&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News

Anonymous said...

It's not the end, only the beginning:
Convictions in boy's death
Grandparents who starved boy to death guilty of second-degree murder
Apr. 7, 2006. 05:10 PM
CANADIAN PRESS

A Toronto couple who allowed their five-year-old grandson to starve to death have been found guilty of second-degree murder.
Fifty-four-year-old Elva Bottineau and 53-year-old Norman Kidman were supposed to have saved their grandchildren from a life of abuse after they were taken from their birth parents.

Instead, five-year-old Jeffrey Baldwin was confined to a locked, unheated bedroom for as much as 14 hours a day, breathing in the smell of his own urine and feces.

The details of his tragic life were outlined for the court today in a lengthy address by Justice David Watt that took much of the day.

Court heard he was treated like a dog, made to eat out of a bowl with his fingers and he often drank from a toilet when he was thirsty.

Emergency crews were shocked when they found Jeffrey’s frail body, weighing less than he did on his first birthday.

He was just 21 pounds when he died of starvation and pneumonia in November 2002, weeks before his sixth birthday.

When his sister was rescued from the house she too showed obvious signs of starvation with skinny limbs, a distended belly and open sores.

Although the children lived in squalor, the rest of the house was immaculately clean, court heard.

Bottineau’s lawyer Anil Kapoor had argued his client did not deliberately kill her grandson. He cited a psychologist who testified Bottineau was mentally retarded with a personality disorder that prevented her from seeing Jeffrey waste away.

But another expert witness, Lisa Ramshaw, contradicted that assessment and said Bottineau had “a higher order of thinking than someone with mental retardation” and lied to protect herself.

Lawyer Catherine Glaister told Watt that Kidman did not plan to kill Jeffrey and had little involvement in the children’s lives.

Anonymous said...

I would like to know why this child was placed in a home by the CAS and not monitered in any way. Why was this situation allowed to go on with no one knowing. It seems to me that there are more guilty parties here besides the grandparents. I have witnessed where CAS have involved themselves in the lives of young parents, almost to the point of harassment. This is the exact opposite. WHY???

Anonymous said...

I just heard about this
horrid situation today
after the verdict and
decided to learn more.

Seems that they said that
they have over l8,000 cases a year to monitor,
and not enough case workers.

Seems to ME, that there
was obvious evidence that
these so called 'grandparents' had
priors for abuse.

It's heartbreaking, and I
believe after what I have
seen and heard so far, that the Catholic Children's Society have
let more children die
under their watch.

One is too many. Hire more
people. EACH and every
child is precious. It's
unbearable to think that
the police chief that investigated this compared
Jeffrey to looking like
a holocaust survivor.

Breaks my heart - also that
there was an Aunt's boyfriend that didn't want
to give up his free rent,
and saw this terrible abuse
going on :(

I would love to help get involved and change this.

If there are suggestions,
to do ANYTHING, I can to
help see that this doesn't
happen again (I also met
someone whose child was
taken away and killed in
foster care) and I will
never, ever forget her
feelings of hopelessness,
helplessness, and most of
all her haunted eyes. She
was not an abuser - she was
set up by her x husband's
new wife who offered to
babysit,to give Mom a break,
then called CFS. So sad.
So, so sad.

Bless all our children.

Cathi
dejavu3@shaw.ca
Feeling helpless, but not
hopeless - more voices that speak up and not forget these beautiful
children - I just don't know where to start - but
I will assist in any way
I can.

Anonymous said...

Cathy,

If you want to help to make sure situations like Jeffrey Baldwin never happen again, I'd suggest you start by reading the posts on this blog and referring to other websites such as Dufferin VOCA and Canada Court Watch. The system is far worse than you could ever imagine. For reasons that are beyond the scope of this post I can tell you with certainty that hiring more social workers is one of the worst things that could happen. CAS agencies should not be involved in monitoring anywhere near 18,000 cases per year. Workloads of this type are a convenient excuse to deflect attention from the abuses they engage in.

Other posts deals with various pieces of a puzzle that's so immense it can only be understood over time.
It's wonderful to see people like you stepping forward and wanting to end the abuse. You'll be utterly shocked by what you learn as you get more into this issue.

Anonymous said...

The child abduction society does not do any follow up on anyone - they have homestudies for strangers that boil down to tea and cookies, and a few studies, and a few reports. They visit children who were adopted a "few" times and do not look for abuse. In foster care if the child is lucky they used to visit them maybe once a year. Today their visits are not much better. But above all and what is worse is that they teach society to not ever look at homes that they have deemed as being safe.

Anonymous said...

To the second to last poster I agree the person should visit Dufferin VOCA, and Canada Court Watch as well Origins Canada that are asking for a full legal inquiry.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the poster that hiring more workers is not a solution as many children should not be in care to start with. That would only arm the child abduction society to take more children in fake cases of their devised and alleged files of child abuse. What is really needed here is the Ombudsman having investigative powers and a full Royal Commission of Inquiry into these agencies.

No one would ever condone real cases of child abuse but what the cas has gotten away with is a true crime.

Anonymous said...

Another thing Cathi and others who are new to the site might consider is making others they know (family, friends, etc.) aware of it and asking people they know that have been abused by CAS to come publicly forward with their stories. As Amanda mentioned in one of her posts, numbers are very important. The public realization that CAS callously abuses people has grown from only only a few brave souls a few years ago to the point where things are today. Spreading the word remains one of the most effective things we can do.

Anonymous said...

I think the last post has a good idea. How can the CAS prevent further deaths and what can be learned from those with experience with them?

Anonymous said...

Hi my name is Angel Hancock I live in Hamilton Ont. I am a relitive of poor Jeffey. You see my mother was Elva's sister amd as far as i'm concerned Elva Bottineau and her so called husband can rot in hell for what they done to that little boy and his sister. Jeffery has alot of relitives and not one of us knew Elva's children. Not even poor jeffery up until now.

Anonymous said...

Hi my name is Angel Hancock I live in Hamilton Ont. I am a relitive of poor Jeffey. You see my mother was Elva's sister amd as far as i'm concerned Elva Bottineau and her so called husband can rot in hell for what they done to that little boy and his sister. Jeffery has alot of relitives and not one of us knew Elva's children. Not even poor jeffery up until now.

Anonymous said...

Hi my name is Angel Hancock I live in Hamilton Ont. I am a relitive of poor Jeffey. You see my mother was Elva's sister amd as far as i'm concerned Elva Bottineau and her so called husband can rot in hell for what they done to that little boy and his sister. Jeffery has alot of relitives and not one of us knew Elva's children. Not even poor jeffery up until now.

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