Mom can take baby to prison

 February 7, 2008

PRINCE GEORGE, British Columbia, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Canadian officials in British Columbia have decided Lisa Anne Whitford may bring her infant daughter with her when she goes to prison for manslaughter.

In what officials say is the first case of its kind in the province -- and possibly a first in Canada -- officials told Whitford, 37, she could bring her baby to prison with her, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported Thursday. Whitford was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison sentence for shooting and killing her common-law husband, Anthony Ryan Cartledge, 49, in 2006.

Whitford gave birth to her daughter in March 2007 while in custody.

Dave Lefebvre, a spokesman for the Correctional Service of Canada, said a program is in place for this kind of situation in Canada, but as far as he knows this is the first time a woman will take her child with her to serve a federal prison sentence.

Whitford appeared for her sentencing by video from the Alouette River Correctional Center for Women. She will serve much of her sentence in the Fraser Valley Institution mother-child program, the newspaper said.

The judge in the case also ruled that Whitford may never again own firearms or ammunition.