REGINA – A Martensville, Sask. woman convicted of sexually abusing children is free after the province’s highest court last week threw out her conviction.
The judgment, signed by three Saskatchewan Court of Appeal judges, criticizes methods police used to question the children who were allegedly abused at the babysitting service where the 23-year-old woman worked. She was 17 at the time so she cannot be named due to provisions in the Young Offenders Act.
The judgment said questions asked of the children were leading and suggestive and could have led them to falsely accuse the woman.
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The youth court judge who sat on the case made a number of legal errors regarding evidence, the judgment stated.
Of the nine people charged, two were convicted. The woman’s acquittal now leaves one person convicted in the case and he is appealing the decision.
A national spotlight was thrown on the town near Saskatoon in 1992 when day-care operators, local police and RCMP officers were accused of sexually abusing children attending the daycare. When questioned, a number of small children told police they had been abused in various ways.
But the appeal court judges said the children claimed abuse that in some cases was physically impossible and that the children’s statements to police were invalidated by the method used to obtain the information.
Free on bail
The acquitted woman was sentenced to two years in a young offenders centre but spent most of the time free on bail pending the results of the appeal.
She said receiving the acquittal “feels like I’ve had 5,000 pounds lifted off my shoulders.”
The woman wants a public inquiry to investigate why she and the others were charged.
A group formed to help the children who were allegedly abused also wants an inquiry.
But Saskatchewan justice minister Bob Mitchell said an inquiry would add nothing to public understanding of what occurred, since police methods were amply discussed during several trials.
