No inquiry into former soldier’s murder-suicide
EDMONTON — Alberta Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley has launched an independent investigation into what she calls the failure of the provincial justice system at every level in the way it treated the victim of a vicious sexual assault.
The announcement follows a CBC report on a 28-year-old indigenous woman from central Alberta who was forced to spend five nights in the Edmonton Remand Centre during her testimony at a 2015 preliminary hearing for the man who attacked her.
The report says the woman had trouble focusing and answering questions, so the judge agreed with a Crown prosecutor’s request to have her spend the weekend in the centre out of concern for her physical and mental state.
She was forced to testify about the June 2014 assault in Edmonton while she was shackled and handcuffed, and on at least two occasions she had to travel in the same prisoner van as her attacker.
The woman, whose name is protected under a publication ban, was killed in an unrelated shooting seven months after her testimony.
Ganley has hired Manitoba criminal lawyer Roberta Campbell to investigate what happened and she’s also set up a committee to review the case and recommend policies to ensure such treatment never happens again.
“When I was made aware of this situation, I was shocked, angry and heartbroken,” said Ganley in a written statement released Monday. “In my opinion, there were obvious mistakes and poor decisions made in this case. The way she was treated in the system is absolutely unacceptable.”
Ganley said she has already apologized to the victim’s mother for the way her daughter was treated. A representative from provincial victim services will be working to ensure appropriate resources are available to the family.
Ganley also said any prosecutor who decides to use a section of the Criminal Code that allows for witnesses to be held in custody for refusing to testify must have the decision approved by the chief Crown prosecutor.
Lance Blanchard, the man who attacked the woman, was found guilty last December of aggravated assault, kidnapping, unlawful confinement, aggravated sexual assault, possession of a weapon and threatening to cause death or bodily harm.
The CBC report said the Crown is seeking to have him declared a dangerous offender.
HALIFAX — Nova Scotia’s medical examiner has ruled out conducting a fatality inquiry into a horrific murder suicide involving a former Canadian soldier who killed his wife, mother and young daughter before killing himself in the family’s rural home earlier this year.
Lionel Desmond, a 33-year-old veteran of the war in Afghanistan who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, took his own life after shooting his 52-year-old mother, his wife Shanna, 31, and their 10-year-daughter Aaliyah.
The killings on Jan. 3 in Upper Tracadie, N.S., prompted a difficult debate over soldiers with PTSD, domestic violence and what should be done to prevent such tragedies.
Autopsy records have since been handed to the family’s nearest relatives, but medical examiner Dr. Matt Bowes has decided not to conduct an investigation under the province’s Fatality Investigations Act, spokeswoman Sarah Gillis said in an e-mailed statement. She did not offer reasons for the decision.
Catherine Hartling, Shanna Desmond’s aunt, has renewed her call for some sort of public inquiry, saying other family members want the same thing but are still too distraught to speak out.
“A lot of them are going through a lot of stress right now,” Hartling said in an interview from her home, across the street from the house where the four bodies were found. “A lot of them have ... emotional problems.”
Hartling said it’s a particularly difficult time for the Desmond side of the family because they are preparing for a burial service on June 24 for Lionel Desmond and his mother. A funeral service was held down the road at a large church in Tracadie on Jan. 11.
“We’ve been all just trying to hang in there,” she said, adding that Shanna Desmond and daughter Aaliyah are to be buried in August.
Despite her profound grief — compounded by the fact that her 47-year-old sister died in March — Hartling said she is still looking for answers to some tough questions about what happened to Lionel Desmond. She said she raised the issue with the RCMP at a meeting in March.
“I was telling them that I would like to see an inquiry take place into this,” she said. “I haven’t heard nothing.”
Desmond served in Afghanistan in 2007, and had received treatment from a joint personnel support unit in New Brunswick for a year prior to his release from the military. Such units provide support to ill and injured soldiers, including mental injuries.
Neither National Defence nor Veterans Affairs Canada have committed to investigating the treatment Desmond received before and after his release from the military in July 2015.
Immediately after the killings, some of Lionel Desmond’s relatives said he was not getting the help he needed once he returned home. Questions were also raised about the care he received at the hospital in nearby Antigonish, N.S., which has its own mental health unit.
At the time, Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil said an investigation would look into how the province’s health-care system dealt with Desmond.
However, Gillis said that report would not be released to the public.
PTSD has been the top diagnosis for the hundreds of troops released from the military for medical reasons each year since at least 2014. Some 18 military personnel took their own lives in 2015, many of whom had sought some type of mental-health treatment shortly before their deaths.
The Canadian Forces and Veterans Affairs have opened specialized clinics, hired more staff and cut red tape in recent years to provide better care and support as more military personnel have come forward seeking help for PTSD and other disorders.