Parents of abandoned baby Angelica Leslie sentenced, released
Father admits to leaving infant in stairwell when temperature was -14 C
CBC News, Apr 17, 2009
The father who abandoned his infant daughter in the freezing stairwell of a parking garage last year has been set free by a Toronto court after it was ruled he has already served his sentence awaiting trial.
The parents who abandoned the little girl, who became known as baby Angelica Leslie, in a parking garage stairwell at Leslie Street and Finch Avenue in January 2008 when she was about 11 months old were both sentenced on Thursday.
According to court documents, the father pleaded guilty to leaving his daughter in –14 C degree weather. He was charged with abandoning a child under the age of 10 and thereby endangering its life. He was also charged with failing to provide the necessities of life to his other three children.
The couple had previously denied that the baby was theirs despite DNA evidence. But the father told the court on Thursday that the baby was his and that he took the baby to the parking stairwell.
The judge sentenced him to 22 months in jail, but he had already served 11 months awaiting trial and was given two-for-one credit and allowed to go free having served his sentence. He will be on probation for two years.
The mother had pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of not providing proper care to her other children under the Family Services and Child Protection Act. She was fined $300 and released.
The other children are no longer in the custody of the couple.
The parents, who were both 30 years old at the time they abandoned their baby, were arrested in May in Kitchener, west of Toronto.
Police said the couple lived in north Toronto in January 2008, when the baby was found in the parking garage stairwell of a shopping plaza.
It's believed the brown-eyed girl was face down on the freezing concrete for about two hours before being discovered by a passerby. She had minor cuts and bruises on her face but quickly recovered.
Her discovery prompted a worldwide search by police to find her parents. Police released security video of a green car seen in the parking lot and put out video information on YouTube and Facebook asking for the public's help.
It took five months to track down the parents at their new home in Kitchener.
Angelica Leslie has since been adopted.
The parents and the baby's real name cannot be used due to a court-ordered publication ban.
Alyson Schafer on Spanking and Corporal Punishment of Children
Alyson Schafer is a psychotherapist and one of Canada's leading parenting experts. She's the author of the best-selling "Breaking the Good Mom Myth" (Wiley, 2006) and host of TV's The Parenting Show a live call-in show in Toronto, Ontario.
The media relies on Alyson's comments and opinions. you can find her interviewed and quoted extensively in such publications as Cosmopolitan, Readers' Digest, Canadian Living, Today's Parents, and Canadian Families.
You can read Alyson's thoughts.
Auditor General of Ontario
Disasterous Report on the Family Reponsibility Office FRO 2010
80% of Telephone calls don't get answered
Payers and recipients do not have direct access to their assigned enforcement services officer
"There is only limited access to enforcement staff because many calls to the Office do not get through or are terminated before they can be answered."
"The Office is reviewing and working on only about 20% to 25% of its total cases in any given year."
"At the end of our audit in April 2010, there were approximately 91,000 bring-forward notes outstanding, each of which is supposed to trigger specific action on a case within one month. The status of almost one-third of the outstanding bring-forward notes was "open," indicating either that the notes had been read but not acted upon, or that they had not been read at all, meaning that the underlying nature and urgency of the issues that led to these notes in the first place was not known. In addition, many of the notes were between one and two years old."
"For ongoing cases, the Office took almost four months from the time the case went into arrears before taking its first enforcement action. For newly registered cases that went straight into arrears, the delay was seven months from the time the court order was issued."
Ontario's child financial support collection agency has big problems
Ontario's Family Responsibility Office has many problems
Quote from Ontario Government Ombudsman -"an equal opportunity error-prone program,."'
Support recipients not getting their money.
Men who've been meeting their court-ordered obligations have trouble getting the FRO to stop taking payments when it's supposed to. Read More ..
"Canada's National newspaper for professional women"
Does the FRO have a feminist perspective?
When families fall apart, they can make for the bitterest of enemies. The intensity of their hostility, the personal rhetoric, the posturing and positioning, and the utter faithlessness of remembrance in the relationship's good deeds and consequences is a breathtaking phenomenon. It's as if the positive qualities and countless achievements are struck from history as a revisionist might strike the Holocaust. Into all of this the family court system wades, often inelegantly. Divorce lawyers drive up the emotional and financial toll of separation and transformation. Family and friends frequently collude to make things worse.
And when government decides to rear its head, well, it's a mess for all the world to see. Witness the recent attention on Ontario's euphemistically branded Family Responsibility Office. A job in advertising doubtlessly greeted the person who came up with its title, because it suggests some sort of feel-good missionary work to hold together the sanctity of the institution. Read More ..
"Canada's national newspaper for professional women"
The Family Responsibility Office Under Scrutiny
On June 9, 2005 the McGuinty government announced the passage of Bill 155, legislation that promised to increase enforcement, improve fairness and enhance efficiency at the Family Responsibility Office (FRO).
However, the legislation did not address the problem of accountability and, as things now stand, the FRO is a threat to every Canadian affected by a government regulated support and custody arrangement system. Think of George Orwell's 1984 and you'll have a good picture of how issues are handled at the FRO.
They have legal power to extort money from Canadians, but are not responsible or accountable for their actions.
Last year an FRO staff member decided not to wait for a court date to review the financial status of an out-of-work truck driver and took it upon themselves to suspend his license because he was, understandably, behind on his payments, having lost his job earlier in the year. Although he was looking for work, the FRO cut off the only way he knew of to earn a living. His suicide note explained how he'd lost all hope. Is this what we want FRO to be doing? Read More ..
Wicked mum murdered son, 8, with electrical cables after he caught her in sex romps with his granddad
The Mirror, UK, October 19 2016
Vicious Veronica Panarello throttled her son Loris to death and abandoned his body in a remote gully after he found out about the fling.
The "manipulative" mum, wept as she was jailed for 30 years at a court in Italy on Monday
A wicked mum who brutally murdered her eight-year-old son after he allegedly discovered she was having an affair with his grandfather has been jailed.
Vicious Veronica Panarello throttled her son Loris Stival with electrical cables and abandoned his body in a remote gully after he found out about the fling.
The "manipulative" mum wept as she was jailed for 30 years at a court in Italy on Monday.
Panarello, 28, had tried to pretend her son had been abducted to cover up the horrendous killing in November 2014.
Panarello throttled her eight-year-old son Loris to death with electrical cables. Read More ..
New Brunswick woman ruled responsible in burning of baby's body
ST. STEPHEN, N.B. - A New Brunswick judge says a woman who burned and dismembered her newborn son is criminally responsible for her actions.
Becky Sue Morrow earlier pleaded guilty to offering an indignity to a dead body and disposing of a newborn with the intent of concealing a delivery.
Judge David Walker ruled Friday that the 27-year-old woman may have been suffering from a mental disorder when she delivered the baby but that that was not the case when the baby's body was burned and its remains hidden.
It is not known if the baby was alive at the time of birth.
At a hearing last month, the court heard contrasting reports from the two psychiatrists. One said Ms. Morrow was in a "disassociated" mental state when the crime occurred. The other said she clearly planned her actions and understood the consequences.
Canada's
national "Child Day"
November 20th
Canada's "Child Day" is held on November 20th each year as designated by the Parliament of Canada in 1993.
It commemorates the United Nations adoption of two landmark documents concerned with the human rights of all children and youths. Read More ..