DAYCARE FILTHY, COURT TOLD
Provincial inspector testifies at trial of unlicensed business operators concerning 2-year-old’s death,
Playrooms littered with plastic toys, sleeping cots jammed from wall to wall and an overgrown backyard with a missing section of fence that leads to an uncovered swimming pool.
Such was the state at 343 Yellowood Circ. days after 2-year-old Eva Ravikovich was found dead at the unlicensed home daycare business, according to a Ministry of Education inspector who scoured the property in July 2013.
Judith Bod testified Monday at the trial of the daycare’s operators: Olena Panfilova, her husband Ruslan and their daughter Karyna Rabadanova. They were charged with operating an illegal home child-care business under Ontario’s Day Nurseries Act after the toddler was found lifeless at the house and the premise was deemed filthy and overcrowded by government officials.
Home daycares can only operate without a licence if they look after no more than five children with uncommon parentage. According to Bod’s testimony, at least 35 kids were registered at the daycare, while first responders reported counting 27 at the property when Eva died.
Fourteen dogs were also discovered at the neighbouring house, 345 Yel- lowood Circ., which officials believed was also used as a daycare.
The cause of Eva’s death has not been released as York Region police continue to investigate.
Panfilova, who was registered as the operator of “Lira” daycare at 343 Yel- lowood, sat in the front row of the courtroom on Monday, as she listened intently to her Russian interpreter. Seated behind her were her husband Ruslan and daughter Rabadanova, whose name was registered for a daycare business called Biba at 345 Yellowood, the court heard.
In her testimony, Bod told the court what she saw when she inspected the house on July 17, 2013, 11 days after the toddler’s death. The two-storey house in Vaughan had been sealed since the day after Eva’s death on July 8, when a York Region health official documented unsanitary conditions including a garbage bag of diapers in the kitchen and traces of potentially deadly listeria bacteria.
Earlier in the trial, the court also heard from York Region Police who responded when Eva was found dead, and the health inspector who declared the business closed down the following day.
In a separate case, Eva’s parents Ekaterina and Vycheslav Ravikovich are suing the daycare providers and the provincial Ministry of Education for $3.5 million. A Newmarket judge ruled in March that the lawsuit can proceed, after the province attempted to have it thrown out by arguing it had no responsibility for Eva since she died in an unlicensed daycare.
The Ministry of Education has admitted that it failed to respond to four complaints about the Yellowood daycare before Eva died.
The trial resumes Sept. 28.