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Martensville
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family | Sandra Davis | Saskatchewan Justice claims it
has "evolved". Not | Michael
Cardamone |
Amish woman
She said
before her family went to a counselling centre, she was "blocking
out" any memory of the attacks. "She'd say she was
Satan or changed into a man," the girl said, and recalled
her aunt also made up "a little song about Satan.''
- Woman acquitted of abuse
- A retrial is seen
as too traumatic for five children who testified to mistreatment.
- JANE SIMS London Free Press
Justice Reporter, February 22, 2005
ST. THOMAS -- An Amish woman accused of hideous acts of childhood
sexual abuse involving young relatives walked out of court yesterday,
acquitted of 19 charges. The acquittals were not decided by a
jury. The children who said they had been abused didn't tell
the court their version of what happened.
Instead, assistant Crown attorney
Douglas Walker called no evidence, telling Superior Court Justice
Thomas Heeney it was too much for the children to testify against
their aunt a second time.
"It's unfortunate for
everyone, not just the complainants, but the accused," Walker
said.
The Crown's decision put the
brakes on an anticipated three-week retrial of the woman. A court
order prohibits identifying her or the children.
The acquittal also closed a
case that ripped apart an Amish family and left many questions
surrounding what happened within the closed Elgin County community.
The bonneted woman in the long
dress pleaded not guilty yesterday to the 19 charges that included
sexual assault, sexual touching and sexual interference.
The allegations dated from
1994 to 2001 and involved five children.
In testimony last April, four
of the children described bizarre and hideous acts of violence
they said had been inflicted upon them by their aunt, including
sexual touching, beatings, attempted suffocations and strangulations.
The children testified they
were forced to eat manure, dead animals and urine.
But when two witnesses said
they had "blocked out" the alleged abuse, defence lawyer
Jeanine LeRoy asked for a mistrial, arguing she needed time to
explore the issues of repressed and blocked memory.
A mistrial was declared.
Yesterday, Walker told Heeney
police investigators, counsellors and a psychologist said it
would be too traumatic and harmful for the children to testify
again.
The oldest witness, a 14-year-old
girl, was depressed after the last trial and testifying again
"could trigger another crisis" with long-term effects,
Walker said.
Heeney called the case "a
tragedy" for all involved, but he said "in the circumstances,
it appears to be the compassionate decision."
The woman agreed to enter into
a three-year $500 peace bond requiring no deposit.
Under the order, she cannot
associate with seven named young people nor with anyone under
the age of 15 unless in the company of another adult. She cannot
be within five kilometres of two Malahide Township addresses.
Walker said outside the courtroom
he was disappointed, but the children's welfare was his major
concern.
"This isn't a decision we've made lightly," he said.
LeRoy said her client is greatly
relieved and "thrilled to have it behind her."
She added the woman was not
admitting any misconduct by agreeing to the peace bond.
"She has not had her day
in court," LeRoy said, but "her name will always be
surrounded by a question mark even though there was no evidence
against her today."
The woman has undergone her
share of difficulties, LeRoy said. For nine months, she was held
in custody before she was granted bail, though she has no criminal
record.
The woman was removed from
her own community and found refuge with a Mennonite group, where
she has shelter, employment and "a sense of family and community."
The woman's supporters and
parents were in the courtroom. But she remains estranged from
other parts of her family, LeRoy said.
Among her supporters was Adriaan
Mak, a London man who said he represents the False Memory Syndrome
Coalition, which debunks the theory of repressed memory.
Mak said the peace bond was
"the perfect result."
Barbara MacQuarrie, community
director for the Centre for Research on Violence Against Women
and Children, said the case "looks like a gross miscarriage
of justice."
Copyright © The London Free Press
Amish girl recounts abuse
Her aunt is on trial on
19 sex and violence charges involving five nieces and nephews.
JANE SIMS, Free Press Justice
Reporter, THE LONDON FREE PRESS, April 23, 2004
ST. THOMAS -- With her starched
white bonnet and long blue dress pressed in place, the teenager
testifying yesterday was the picture of a proper Amish woman.
What she described to a Superior Court of Justice jury seemed
at odds with her appearance -- horrible acts of sexual abuse
and violence inflicted upon her within her closed community by
her aunt.
The 13-year-old recounted the
horrors under questions by assistant Crown attorney Douglas Walker
at the trial of a 34-year-old woman who has pleaded not guilty
to 19 charges involving five children -- her nieces and nephews.
"She sexually abused us,"
the girl said with a clipped Pennsylvania Dutch accent.
The identities of the accused
and the complainants are protected by a court-ordered publication
ban.
The jury and others in the
cavernous old courtroom watched the girl speak into a microphone
on closed-circuit television. The technology allowed her to be
in another part of the courthouse, away from where her aunt sat
in the prisoner's box.
Members of the Amish community
and family watched with rapt attention as the girl, about to
end her school days when she completes Grade 8 next month, described
what she remembered: - Touching of her "private parts"
by her aunt, either with her hands or with a knife. - Numerous
beatings "all over the body." - Attempted suffocation
of the children with string around their necks or a plastic bag
over their heads. - Forcing them to eat manure, dead animals
and ingesting urine, sometimes telling them it would hurt them
and other times indicating "our parents eat things like
that."
One of the more bizarre circumstances
the girl described took place, she said, in the aunt's bedroom.
She said when she was either naked or dressed, she would wear
an artificial beard.
The girl also recounted how
her aunt would put insects into her and would tell her and other
children to do it to her.
"She'd say she was Satan
or changed into a man," the girl said, and recalled her
aunt also made up "a little song about Satan.''
The girl said her aunt "would
say things to scare us" or would "say 'if it feels
good' and things like that."
Her aunt also would threaten
the children, warning "she'll kill us" and not to tell.
She said the assaults took
place at her home -- in the barn and house -- and at her aunt's
home. But she couldn't say how many times she was abused and
often could not be specific about who was there.
Often, she said, the assaults
took place in front of other children, but she could not be sure
which ones.
She insisted she and her siblings
never traded stories about the abuse. "Us children didn't
really talk about it," she said. "Not what (the aunt)
did to us."
She said before her family
went to a counselling centre, she was "blocking out"
any memory of the attacks.
She had also blocked out the
memory of an abuse by her uncle, she said. He was present for
some abuse inflicted on her by the aunt, she said.
When pressed by LeRoy, she
denied she had substituted her aunt as the abuser to forget it
was the uncle.
"It isn't like that, no,"
the girl said.
The jury also heard from the
girl's mother, who described the daily routine of their home,
the family's relationship and how her daughter often would couch
her descriptions with words such as "maybe," "probably"
and "perhaps."
"In our culture, we tend
not to be so sure of ourselves when we say something," the
mother explained in answering LeRoy's question. "I'd say
it is one reason she does this, but it's more than that.
"I think children who
are abused tend not to be so sure of themselves."
- The trial continues today.
- Copyright © The LondoThe
London Free Press
-
-
- Amish children describe
abuse
- Their aunt is on
trial on 19 charges.
JANE SIMS, Free Press Justice
Reporter, April 24, 2004
ST. THOMAS -- Three more Amish
children yesterday described acts of sexual abuse and violence
they say were inflicted on them by their aunt. A jury watched
the children testify on closed-circuit television at the Superior
Court of Justice trial of a 34-year-old Elgin County woman who
has pleaded not guilty to 19 charges involving five children.
The charges include assault,
sexual assault and administering a noxious thing.
A court-ordered publication
ban protects the identities of the witnesses and the accused.
Under questioning by assistant
Crown attorney Douglas Walker, an 11-year-old boy testified his
aunt touched his genitals and forced him to perform a sex act
on her while they were in the hayloft of his family's farm.
"I was afraid not to,"
he said, because his aunt told him "she would kill us if
we didn't."
He also testified she put a
rope around his neck more than once and pulled it tight. And
he recalled her placing a plastic bag over his head, which "made
us very, very scared."
The boy testified the woman
often would cut the bottom of his and his cousins' feet with
a kitchen knife. He never told his parents, he said, terrified
his aunt would be angry.
But in cross-examination by
defence lawyer Jeanine LeRoy, the boy was confused about which
room he was cut in, whether he was sitting in a chair or in a
corner, and who, if anyone, saw the slashings.
"Sometimes I get mixed
up and I can't remember it," he said.
The boy was adamant his mother
did not help him remember the incidents and he did not talk to
his siblings about the abuse.
A shy 13-year-old girl demurely
said her aunt "touched my private parts" while they
were in an orchard. She said she eventually told her mother about
it.
But in cross-examination, she
said had dreamed about her aunt sexually abusing her brother
shortly before she told. LeRoy suggested the girl was dreaming
about the abuse she said was inflicted upon her.
"It did happen,"
the girl said. She also said she "never really liked (the
aunt).
"I don't know why. I just
didn't."
A 12-year-old boy said his
aunt had reached down inside his pants. He said it made him feel
"bad and little."
- Amish case ends in mistrial
- A woman charged with
abusing children will be back for a new court date May 27.
JANE SIMS, Free Press Justice
Reporter, THE LONDON
FREE PRESS, April 27, 2004
ST. THOMAS -- A judge declared
a mistrial yesterday in the case of an Elgin County Amish woman
charged with 19 counts of sexual abuse and violence involving
five children. Superior Court Justice Edward Browne dismissed
the jury of seven women and five men yesterday afternoon.
The bonneted defendant sat
quietly in the prisoner's box as Browne sent jurors home.
"I dismiss you, yes, but
I dismiss you with heartfelt thanks," Browne told the jury.
The judge had told the jury
he made the decision in their absence because of "matters
involving more time than is available."
The names of the defendant
and the children, who are her nieces and nephews, are protected
by court order. The woman will be back in court May 27 to set
a new trial date.
The trial had heard four children
detail bizarre and hideous acts of violence they said were inflicted
upon them by their aunt.
Their allegations included
sexual touching, beatings, attempted suffocations and strangulations,
and being forced to eat manure, dead animals and urine.
The children did not testify
in the courtroom, but from another room in the courthouse, appearing
on closed-circuit TV to protect them from having to talk about
the alleged abuse in front of their aunt.
During the testimony, many
members of the woman's family and members of the Amish community
watched from the gallery of the Elgin County courtroom. Some
took their own notes.
The jury had heard only three
days of testimony following a prolonged jury selection process
last week, when members of the panel were asked individually
if the woman's background would influence their judging of the
case.
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
