N.S. Premier wants teens gone wild to pay

ALISON AULD AND KEITH DOUCETTE

Canadian Press

August 29, 2007 at 5:36 PM EDT

HALIFAX — A 15-year-old girl stared blankly at the courtroom floor Wednesday as the Crown recounted how she allegedly beat a senior citizen with metal table legs in what appears to be a random, yet violent attack.

The young girl, who can't be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, sat stone-faced as Crown attorney Bob Nisbet described how she and two other teens allegedly chased the 66-year-old woman on a dark city walkway, saying nothing as they repeatedly struck her.

“It was a meaningless bit of violence,” Mr. Nisbet said in court as the accused, a baby-faced teen with long, dark hair, fiddled with her hands and glimpsed occasionally at her mother. “She received numerous blows.”

Silvia Bortignon of Halifax suffered a broken arm, bruises, and possibly cracked ribs before the attack ended when someone scared the girls off and pursued them down a street.

The incident is the latest in a rash of violent crimes involving young people in the Halifax area, which in addition to horrifying residents have sparked demands for tougher sentences for young offenders.

Ms. Bortignon was walking home on the Halifax Common at about 9:20 p.m. Monday when she apparently saw the girls running toward her with what she thought were shiny metal pipes.

When she asked what they wanted, Mr. Nisbet said one of the girls struck her and sent her falling to the ground.

Mr. Nisbet said one of the girls lost a sneaker as she fled. The shoe was later matched to one of the girls when they were arrested as they strolled on a downtown street some time before midnight.

The mother of one of the girls said in court that she spoke to her daughter shortly before the alleged attack and asked her where she was since she was under a court-ordered curfew to be home from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.

But the woman failed to notify police that her daughter was not at home and was only informed of her whereabouts when the police called to say she had been arrested.

“It shocked me when I heard about it,” she said in court. “She knows better than to go outside and hurt old ladies.”

Judge Pam Williams denied bail for the girl who has been charged with prior offences, saying “it's obvious the allegations are serious and are escalating.”

Another 15-year-old charged in the attack was remanded into custody, while the third was released pending a future court date.

The bail hearings come just as Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald urged Ottawa to toughen Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act in the wake of a spree of brutal attacks by young people.

“It absolutely sickens me when I see some of the crimes that have been committed during the past number of weeks,” the premier told reporters Wednesday.

In addition to the incident allegedly involving the girls, a 16-year-old boy was charged with attempted murder after four security guards were stabbed during a brawl at an alcohol-free event.

In both cases, the teens have been charged with breaking court-ordered conditions, including ignoring curfews.

“I grew up in a community where you can leave your door open,” said Mr. MacDonald. “That to me is what we want to see in Nova Scotia. People should feel safe.... Senior citizens should feel safe in walking down the streets.”

Justice Minister Murray Scott, a former police chief, voiced his frustration with a lack of federal action to tighten provisions dealing with pre-trial detention in order to deal with youth who are a danger to the community.

Pressed by reporters, Mr. Scott said the public is paying the price because courts tend to release some young offenders rather than detain them.

“We see people being hurt every day,” he said.

Nova Scotia is particularly sensitive to the issue and has taken several steps to comply with recommendations put forward by the inquiry into the death of Theresa McEvoy.

The Halifax teacher's aide and mother of three was killed in October 2004 when her car was broadsided by a stolen vehicle driven by Archie Billard, then 16.

Mr. Billard had been released from custody just two days prior to the accident despite facing 27 charges for a string of car thefts.

A subsequent inquiry led by former justice Merlin Nunn made seven recommendations specific to the Youth Criminal Justice Act, including giving more discretion to judges to detain youth caught in a “pattern of offences.”

A call to the federal Justice Department wasn't returned Wednesday. Ottawa is in the process of preparing a consultation paper on pre-trial detention.

Chris McNeil, Halifax's deputy police chief, said that the Nunn commission pointed out a “road map” to how minor changes to the act could make significant changes to public safety.

But Mr. McNeil, who has long championed the issue, doubts there's the political will in Ottawa to make changes.

He said that recent events illustrate that conditional releases don't work with a “small group of incorrigible kids the act fails to address.”

“If the premise is that we need to check on you every hour just to make sure you are abiding by those conditions, then you don't need a cop, you need a guard, and guards are found in correctional facilities not in the community.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Scott said the province is considering the use of electronic surveillance systems such as ankle bracelets to monitor young offenders on conditional release.

His department is currently looking to see if there are any constitutional limitations to the idea.

“It has to be court ordered and we want to make sure we have the ability through the courts to have a youth wear a bracelet,” said Mr. Scott.

Mr. Scott added that he would continue to press for change during a federal-provincial ministers meeting in Ottawa in October.

Dawn Sloane, a Halifax councillor, also voiced her frustration Wednesday with the country's youth laws.

“It was an act of violence. It wasn't a robbery. It has no sense to it whatsoever,” she said during an appearance on a radio call-in show.

“(How could) these kids even think of taking metal table legs to that lady? We've got to change this youth justice system. We have to make it so that it works.”

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Our commentary in the Globe and Mail

August 30, 2007

  1. Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa, Canada wrote:

    Teens need fathers, to break the cycle of dysfunctional families, Canada's parliament needs to legislate a mandatory assumption of equal parenting after divorce. How can a little girl know what a good man is if she never had a father? How can a mother show a daughter what a good man is like if mother herself never had a father in her life. Our society is sick, it has an unofficial policy of gender apartheid. If you a male, you are a assumed to be a second class parent and most troubling, a abuser simply because by accident of birth you happened to be born with testicles between your legs. Male elementary school teachers are getting to be a very small percentage. Go to any elementary school and odds are the principle is a female. The odds are that 50% are divorced women who have strong opinions that are not flattering to men. Girls get treated as though born angels and boys born to be medicated with Ritalin. The false assumptions mean angelic faced fatherless girls from dysfunctional single or duel mother homes are assumed to be OK when they lack the fundamental education received at home by those children lucky to have a normal functional family with a mother and a father. Canada is on a slippery dip of increasing family dysfunctional and delinquent teens. The only solution is for Mr. Harper to bring on a bill for the legal presumption of equal parenting after separation. http://www.OttawaMensCentre.com 613-797-3237

    • Posted 30/08/07 at 9:32 AM EDT

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    1. Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa, Canada wrote: Rodney MacDonald is absolutely 100% politically correct to urge Ottawa to toughen Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act. The reality is that Canada is the wake of brutal decisions by family court judges and fembox lawyers who have only have sufficient respect for the law to be devious enough to break the law with impunity. Take Justice Denis Power of Ottawa. When another judges finds fraud and decides to order an expedited trial of custody because the mother is mentally ill and violent, Justice Denis Power for example issues a restraining order even though the mother was just charged with 5 counts of assaulting the father and, wait for it, never an allegation of violence or threats against the father. Justice Denis Power is typical of the flagrant abusers of judicial power in Canada. One of their weapons is draconian orders for costs that must be paid prior to any further litigation regarding the best interests of children which means, Judges like Denis Power leave children permanently in the care of mentally ill violent mothers and children who grow up never knowing that they have a loving devoted father who are effectively permanently barred from litigating again. Feminist lawyers like Lesley Kendall of the Kingston Ontario firm, Cunningham, Swan, Carty, Little & Bonham personally fabricate evidence and provide their fabricated evidence to judges like Denis Power of Ottawa who simply turn a blind eye to a lawyer giving evidence and simultaneously representing their own clients. It leaves a trail of horrible injustice, it destroys lives, and most importantly, children are abused by those in society with a fiduciary duty to ensure that children are protected. Its enough to absolutely sicken anyone who has the misfortune to be male in a feminist ridden family court where the hatred literally oozes out of the courtroom walls. Canada needs a legal presumption of equal parenting after divorce. http://www.OttawaMensCentre.com 613-797-3237
      • Posted 30/08/07 at 9:52 AM EDT

     

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  1. nick fill from Gosford, Australia writes: As a teacher in a juvenile detention centre I am , I think, somewhat qualified to comment The system is broken, as much there as it is here. I have escorted detainees from the classroom to the tennis courts to the games room to the swimming pool. I have to be careful not to say anything untoward to murdering rapists in case I offend them. They are monycoddled, encouraged, helped, but not in the least punished for some of the most heinous crimes. There is some strange belief that a lifetime of this engrained behaviour can be fixed. Yes their stories are sad, yet we allow it to continue by insisting that the best place for a child is with the birth mother. They use these stories as justification for what they have done and will continue to do because they are repeatedly told that their actions are not their fault, I have seen gang rapists given good behaviour bonds, violent gang bangers just released. As a new father who reads (as much as his wife tells him to) all sorts of recent research into the importance of the first weeks of life I realize that the processes for these detainees to be fixed are absent. Prolonged crying raises blood pressure and destroys synaptic development in the part of the brain associated with empathy. These detainees just don't care, they just don't feel. How can this lack of brain development be fixed. How about by preventing some from having babies in the first place or removing the babies from the environment that causes this behaviour. This ought to raise the ire of the civil libertarians. I have to listen to these 15 and 16 year old detainees speak of their babies, and cringe and think I will teach their kids in 15 years. Herein lies the answer, take away some of our rights, remove children from bad environments and break the cycle or we will have to live with this forever.
    • Posted 29/08/07 at 10:57 PM EDT

    Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa, Canada wrote: Gooday Nick from Gosford NSW, Thank you for your wonderful informative post. I sincerely hope that we hear your comments more often. Your information about lack of empathy by delinquent teens is very interesting and I would ask that you email info –aat- this domain name. I would like to make this respectful comment. To break the cycle you need to cure the cause and not the effect. One of the single greatest contributions to delinquent teens is a delinquent failure to act by a family court judge who at some stage was provided with all the evidence for a change in custody or to make a father a primary parent but instead, unfortunately, here in Canada, we have a serious problems with out of control child abusers called family court judges who do what ever it takes including “illegal” or improper orders that effectively ban a father from ever litigating the best interests of a child. Equally serious is the problem of feminist lawyers like Lesley Kendall of Kinston Ontario and Joanne Barber of Timmins Ontario who personally fabricate evidence and do it with openly with impunity from even a judicial comment. Children raised by mentally ill violent mothers without empathy grow up almost guaranteed to be at high risk of developing equally serious personality disorders. No, its not “their fault”, its frequently caused by dead beat judges and a dead beat feminist lawyer. http://www.OttawaMensCentre.com 613-797-3237

           Posted 30/08/07 at 9:52 AM EDT

  1. Philosopher King from Ottawa, Canada writes: The answer is extremely simple, but frankly our society has neither the guts nor has our legal system developed the sense to do the right thing. "Rights" have replaced "doing the right thing," and I think it would be hard for most to disagree on this point.

    Any child acting like this is clearly lacking meaningful discipline and structure. Children don't just go bad unless they have a mental illness, it takes a lot of bad parenting or being left to their own devices to generate an individual who acts out in this way.

    Though I don't like the jail system as it is designed, you definitely need to take these kids out of their comfort zones, and it needs to be long term. They need the direct daily attention of strong role models. They need to be presented controlled choices to encourage responsible autonomy. They need to be told "no" and have it backed up by predictable consequences.

    Afterall, no one with a clear understanding of their own potential chooses to be a social pariah. It's only when we allow people to wallow in their own misery and vent their anger on strangers that we end up with a problem. Left alone long enough this is where our murderers and career theives come from.

    Nip it in the bud already.
    • Posted 30/08/07 at 10:09 AM EDT

     

    1. Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa, Canada wrote: Philosopher King from Ottawa, Yes, The answer is extremely simple, Children need parents, a functional mother and father, not incarceration. Mental illness in teens can be and is frequently triggered or exacerbated by childhood sexual abuse. Dr. Clancy McKenzie has written a lot about that subject. Childhood sexual abuse is often not limited to one generation, its frequently a very sad story of multiple generations of mothers who were all sexually abused but somewhere along the line, a mother knew her daughter was being sexually abused and did nothing about it. Children born to mothers who were sexually abused grow up at grave risk of being abused by their own mothers. Just because a male sexually abused a female one or more generations ago is apparently the “justification” fembox feminist lawyers need as a means to end, a very illegal end of fabricating any evidence necessary to put a present day deserving father permanently out of the picture. Some judges unfortunately, take the nudge nudge wink wink to issue draconian orders for costs that have more serious implications and severe prejudice than could be issued by way of an order for being a vexatious litigant. These draconian orders are specifically designed by flagrant judicial abusers to make sure a real litigant is permanently barred from litigating a most meritious issue regarding the best interests of a child. Parliament needs to “nip it in the bud early” by way of legislating a mandatory assumption of equal parenting after separation. http://www.OttawaMensCentre.com 613-797-3237
      • Posted 30/08/07 at 10:30 AM EDT
    1. Philosopher King from Ottawa, Canada writes: The answer is extremely simple, but frankly our society has neither the guts nor has our legal system developed the sense to do the right thing. "Rights" have replaced "doing the right thing," and I think it would be hard for most to disagree on this point.

      Any child acting like this is clearly lacking meaningful discipline and structure. Children don't just go bad unless they have a mental illness, it takes a lot of bad parenting or being left to their own devices to generate an individual who acts out in this way.

      Though I don't like the jail system as it is designed, you definitely need to take these kids out of their comfort zones, and it needs to be long term. They need the direct daily attention of strong role models. They need to be presented controlled choices to encourage responsible autonomy. They need to be told "no" and have it backed up by predictable consequences.

      Afterall, no one with a clear understanding of their own potential chooses to be a social pariah. It's only when we allow people to wallow in their own misery and vent their anger on strangers that we end up with a problem. Left alone long enough this is where our murderers and career theives come from.

      Nip it in the bud already.
      • Posted 30/08/07 at 10:09 AM EDT
    1. Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa, Canada wrote: John Silverman Blaming judges makes perfect sense when judges do indirectly what the are prevented from doing directly by law. Our judges are effective “elected”, by their frequently “politically correct” associations” with “elected officials”. The most incompetent and unsuitable judges are not only “enforcing our laws” but using every opportunity to throw their politically sharpened axe frequently at a parent simply because by accident of birth was born male. Their venom and hatred towards men results in little girls never having a father who grow up at grave risk of encountering abuse as children or teens and at greatly increased risk of teen incarceration or teen pregnancy. You can blame a fair chunk of that problem on dead beat judges. It takes a dead beat judge to create a delinquent teen. Real crime starts in Family Court. If you want to see real crime in real court by a real judge, check out the court list at the Ottawa Court house and watch Justice Denis Power in action. http://www.OttawaMensCentre.com 613-797-3237
      • Posted 30/08/07 at 10:41 AM EDT

      Borderline personalities are generally the product of following the example of a parent who had and most probably has the same problem. Odds are is multi generational problem and often associated with fatherless children. Borderline personalities can also be highly intelligent, they can get to be lawyers and even judges and you don't have to go to far find them in family court. "Borderline Personalities" are often a variation and combination of various problems including mental health problems that again most common in fatherless homes. We need to cure the cause and not the effect. To cause the primary problem of a dysfunctional parent we need to encourage functional families with a mother and a father to allow for the simple fact that children learn differently from men and women and boys and girls learn differently. Adopting a feminist correct perspective to children means boys have to start acting gay at an early age and if they have personalities that defy that feminist correct logic they labelled by generally female feminist teachers with tags such as attention deficient disorder and get unnecessarily prescribed drugs to "calm them down" like Ritalin. The only solution is for parliament to legislate a legal presumption of equal parenting after divorce to encourage functional families and functional children.

      http://www.OttawaMensCentre.com 613-797-3237

      Posted 30/08/07 at 2:34 PM EDT