Juror with PTSD urges triple-murder jury to get help
BILL GRAVELAND
THE CANADIAN PRESS
CALGARY — Mark Farrant has a good idea of what jurors are going through after they sat through a recent triple-murder trial’s disturbing testimony about how the victims were killed and disposed of.
Farrant, who is from Toronto, spent five months at the 2014 trial of Farshad Badakhshan, who was ultimately convicted of murdering his 23-year-old girlfriend, Carina Petrache.
Farrant was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and has become an outspoken advocate for the need to provide counselling for jurors hearing horrific cases.
“One of the burdens of being a juror is the isolation you have,” Farrant said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“A juror is the best judge of their own mental health and their own state,” he said. “With some jurors it may take longer if they’re feeling negative impacts.”
Farrant said when his jury duty was over, he felt partially relieved and as if he had just walked out of a vacuum. He expected there would be some sort of debrief from the court: Orders on what he could discuss or a list of counsellors available to help him cope. But that didn’t happen.
Nobody should be forced to suffer in silence, he said.
“If they’re feeling like they need to talk to somebody after the trial has concluded, there shouldn’t be any negativity about that. They shouldn’t feel like it’s a continued burden for them, like it’s their job to feel and just hold those emotions inside,” Farrant said.
“Some people might feel ... it’s their burden to suffer alongside with the families. That’s not the case.”
Jurors in Calgary who recently convicted Douglas Garland of three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of a couple and their five-year-old grandson were subjected to evidence that included graphic and gruesome photos, videos and exhibits which prompted the judge to express concern about the stress they were put under.
“High-profile cases like this one have doubtless involved additional sources of stress due to the length of the trial, the significant media and public interest in this case and, most particularly, the disturbing evidence that was introduced,” Justice David Gates told the jury after testimony had ended.
“Symptoms of stress may appear as any number of physical and psychological reactions, including increased anxiety and frustration, disruption to sleep and eating routines, depression, withdrawal, anger and even hostility.”
The Ontario government last month launched a free counselling service for jurors.
The support program is available at the end of a trial or a coroner’s inquest if jurors need it. It notes that evidence and testimony a jury may have to consider can be graphic, traumatic or violent in nature.
“Distress, depression, changes in sleep patterns, appetite, energy, focus, concentration. All of those symptoms could very easily be a part of a person’s response to very disturbing material,” said Dr. Scott Patten, a psychiatrist and professor with the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary.
“That’s great to hear the judge was cognizant of those problems,” Patten said. “In the past there’s been an interest in trying to offer supports or debriefing strategies that might prevent that.
“Those who do need help, it’s best if it comes from their own seeking of it.”
Patten said the chance of a juror developing PTSD is rare, but it can happen if the individual has undergone some sort of traumatic experience earlier in life.
The head of the Criminal Defence Lawyers Association in Calgary said his profession isn’t immune either.
“It absolutely does affect lawyers — hardened or not — ( just) as it can affect any other observer or someone present in the courtroom during an extended, difficult trial like that,” said Ian Savage.
“There can’t be any real doubt that it cumulatively can affect a person like a lawyer or judge who are exposed to it over time.”
LINDA GIVETASH
THE CANADIAN PRESS
Schools across Canada are grappling with the uncertainty of U.S. travel restrictions and how that affects upcoming student trips across the border.
A travel ban instituted by U.S. President Donald Trump on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries and Syrian refugees may be on hold as it works its way through the U.S. justice system, but Canadian schools remain concerned with how foreign-born students will be treated at the border.
Jim Cambridge, superintendent of the Sooke School District in British Columbia, said there are a number of trips planned for sports, music and educational purposes in the coming months that are being reconsidered.
While the refugee population among students in the Vancouver Island district is small, Cambridge said the board must make a decision based on safety and also ethical considerations.
“The board is concerned some students may be stopped at the border, and if that’s the case, they want to examine whether or not they’ll support any trips to the States right now,” he said.
The B.C. School Trustees Association is advising them on what student groups can expect at the border based on information from both U.S. and Canadian border agencies, he said.
One of the board’s concerns is fairness to students who may not be allowed to cross the border, he said.
Even if specific trips may not involve students affected by the ban, Cambridge said the board will have to decide whether to take a stance on the ban anyway, recognizing there are students within the district who are being discriminated against due to new U.S. travel policies.
“That’s what the board needs to wrestle with is the more ethical decision about whether some trips can go and some can’t or whether they all can’t or can,” he said.
The board meets Tuesday to discuss the issue, and Cambridge said some schools have begun looking at Canadian cities as a “Plan B” in the event trips are cancelled.
Sooke trustees have looked to neighbouring school boards and other areas of the country to help inform their decision.
The Greater Essex County School Board in southwestern Ontario decided earlier this month to cancel a handful of trips over concerns of safety and equity.
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board sent a letter to parents to confirm whether their children will participate in upcoming trips across the border to determine whether plans should go ahead.
Students in the Pembina Trails School Division in Winnipeg participate in many international trips, but superintendent Ted Fransen said a recent decision to cancel one, although rushed, was made easily.
The track team at Acadia Junior High School was required to submit a deposit on Jan. 30 to participate in a competition in Minnesota, days after Trump signed his executive order.
Unsure about how policy would affect students on the team, they chose to opt out of the race.
Since the ban has been blocked by the U.S. courts, Fransen said two other trips to the States have since gone ahead.
Trump has vowed to bring in a new travel ban order to replace the one that the American courts have suspended pending a legal challenge by Washington State and Minnesota. It’s not clear when the new order would be issued.
The Pembina Trails school board isn’t considering new rules around travel in light of the situation in the U.S., even if another ban is implemented.
Fransen said he knows principals, teachers and students within his diverse district all value inclusivity, and a board-wide rule isn’t necessary.
“I just can’t imagine that we would get a request from a school principal to approve a trip to the U.S. where students in the group wouldn’t be allowed to go,” he said. “That would be counter to our culture.”