Mother, ex-partner get 9 years for toddler’s death

Duo were ‘actively complicit’ in hiding boy’s devastating burns, judge rules

LONDON, ONT. It was difficult to know why Amanda Dumont was crying.

She was standing Thursday in the prisoner’s box, her shoulders slumped, whispering to her defence lawyer Ken Marley, before the 32-year-old mother was led away to serve her nine-year sentence in the death of her toddler son, Ryker Daponte-Michaud.

The hope was the tears were for Ryker. But it seems they were also for herself.

Her ex-boyfriend, Scott Bakker, 28, had been handed the same nine-year prison sentence, with the judge deciding they were “actively complicit” in hiding the devastating burns Ryker, just 20-months-old, suffered three days before he died in Strathroy on May 21, 2014.

The sentencing brought to an end the excruciatingly sad case of child neglect and an insight into the difficult life of a little boy who died unnecessarily.

Many have cried for Baby Ryker and his three older sisters who lived on Strathroy’s Penny Lane in a townhouse with their drugaddicted and criminally motivated mother and boyfriend.

In a case full of shocks and sadness both at the mistrial a year ago and retrial in the summer, it was clear that Dumont never accepted the responsibility for her little boy’s well-being.

Even after Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance had found Dumont to be an “incredible” witness following her testimony that minimized her responsibility, Dumont stuck to her guns that it was Bakker, not her, who was responsible for Ryker’s death.

That’s not what the judge decided — and pointed at both Dumont and Bakker as the selfish, irresponsible, neglectful parent and guardian they were after Ryker was accidentally scalded by a cup of hot coffee.

“This situation did not call for sophisticated knowledge or advanced parenting skills,” Pomerance said in her sentencing decision. “It called for the exercise of basic humanity.”

Ryker would have lived if he had been taken for medical care. Instead, for three days, Ryker slowly faded away, while Dumont and Bakker did drugs, fenced stolen property and ignored signs of his demise.

“This was not a momentary lapse in care,” Pomerance said. “Ryker suffered for three days . ... very little was done to save his life.

“There was opportunity for the offenders to change their minds and take Ryker to a doctor. They continued on a course of callous neglect, despite his worsening condition.”

Pomerance noted that Dumont seemed more interested in her slashed tires and lost dog than her critically injured son the day before he died. The day he died, he was left alone in his crib and neither Dumont nor Bakker checked on him. Pomerance noted that in a videotaped conversation to each other in the Strathroy-Caradoc police cells, they revealed they stayed in bed all day.

Only when Dumont’s oldest daughter insisted one of them stay home with the children instead of going shopping was the boy’s body discovered.

“The idea that a parent or guardian would completely ignore a healthy 20-month-old child for an entire day is difficult to understand. The failure to check on the condition of a severely burned child for an entire day verges on staggering,” Pomerance said.

This was not a momentary lapse in care. Ryker suffered for three days. ... very little was done to save his life.