Ottawa mother who abandoned kids to binge on drugs and alcohol gets jail time

OTTAWA — A drug-addicted mother who left her three young children home alone to go party is a danger to children who needs to be locked up, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Ontario Court Justice Peter Wright then sentenced the 26-year-old to five months in jail what he described as a “heart-wrenching” case that saw the three children abandoned in a garbage-strewn Vanier townhouse last March for 17 hours while the mother binged on drugs and alcohol with her friends.

“This breach of trust does not involve the theft of mere money. It involves something much more precious,” said the judge.

When neighbours discovered the crying children, they were in “deplorable condition,” said the judge.

A 3½-year-old girl was naked and covered in feces and calling for her mother in the front window of the locked apartment. Her two-year-old sister was found in a T-shirt and also covered in excrement inside the apartment, while a nine-month-old girl was tottering at the top of the stairs, screaming.

The home’s smoke detector was disconnected; food, toys and clothes littered the floor. A butter knife, half loaf of bread and open tub of margarine sat on the sofa.

When police reached the mother on the phone, she lied and said she had left them with a babysitter she had met the day before. She also said she’d be home in 20 minutes, but never returned.

She was eventually arrested days later at a family court proceeding.

The judge appeared thoroughly unimpressed with the mother’s effort at dealing with her addiction since she pleaded guilty to child abandonment.

The woman has entered a residential treatment program since her guilty plea, but broke the rules by fraternizing with a male resident. After she was tossed out, she moved back in with her mother, but a subsequent test of her hair required as part of an ongoing child-custody proceeding tested positive for cocaine. She had previously told the court she had quit using.

The woman — who has criminal convictions for drugs, fraud and breaches of probation — also made only a half-hearted attempt to continue treatment after her earlier slip-up, the judge concluded.

“It is hard to imagine what further motivation one could want than being faced with the loss of the children and the prospect of jail,” he said.

The Children’s Aid Society is still in the process of trying to gain permanent custody of the children.

“(The woman) poses and continues to pose a risk to children if they are returned to her,” the judge said.

In addition to jail, the woman was also placed on 18 months probation, including not to be alone with any child under 10 except with CAS approval.

aseymour@ottawacitizen.com

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