Child protection must be paramount

Monday afternoon, a Prince Edward Island coroner’s jury came back with 15 recommendations following an inquest into the deaths of Nash Campbell and Patricia Hennessey.

For those who have never heard of the case, Nash was just four years old when he died — he was at the centre of a bitter custody dispute, in his mother’s care for one night so that she could say goodbye to the boy before his father took custody.

Instead, his body, and hers, were found in her burned-out Jeep near Tignish, P.E.I. on June 21, 2013.

One of the witnesses at the inquest, domestic violence expert Dr. Peter Jaffe, called the deaths “predictable and preventable.”

Those words echo a case in Newfoundland and Labrador, a case where then-Child Advocate Darlene Neville told the CBC “One: Zachary Turner’s death was preventable. And two: Zachary was in his mother’s care when he should not have been.”

Zachary Turner was 13 months old in 2003 when his mother, Shirley Turner — on bail after facing charges that she had murdered Zachary’s father — jumped off a wharf in Conception Bay South, drowning them both.

In P.E.I. this week, coroner Dr. Roy Montgomery thanked the inquest jury for their work, saying, “It was a lot of work. You did a great job.”

Their recommendations will be sent to P.E.I.’s justice minister, and include everything from domestic violence training to the sharing of information between family courts and criminal courts to more rules around supervised access. I can’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu. Similar recommendations were made in Newfoundland during the review and investigation of Zachary Turner’s death.

For example, there’s this from P.E.I., suggesting “mandatory multidisciplinary training on domestic violence and child abuse.”

In the Turner review in Newfoundland? “Recommendation 7.6 That the province develop and deliver mandatory, multidisciplinary education and training (including but not limited to) from police, health-care professionals, educators, lawyers and caregivers, the focus of which is investigation and assessment of the need for protective intervention on behalf of the child or children.”

Family disputes can burn white-hot — if you’re honest about it, anyone who has been in a marriage or a serious relationship that’s gone down in bitter flames can attest to the rage and frustration, especially when children and custody are involved.

Parents, though, make their own beds, so to speak. Children end up being pawns.

Children deserve to be the first concern. Decisions made about access and protection should unanimously put children first, and should err on the side of caution. Or, as the Turner inquiry spelled out, that actions be taken with the principle that “the best interests of the child are the paramount consideration under the Act.”

A colleague of mine tweeted — apparently only briefly — that inquests alone won’t stop such cases. He’s right.

Such cases are rare — and, for most of us, close to incomprehensible.

But whatever parents choose to do with their lives should not be visited on their children.

And government agencies have to be extremely vigilant about the mere possibility.