Ministry defends social workers in high-profile child custody case
Government document says employees acted ‘in good faith’
A Supreme Court judge made mistakes when he ruled a father abused his children and that social workers wrongly dismissed the mother as mentally unstable, the provincial government says in appeal court documents filed in a notorious child custody case.
Despite the judge’s 2015 ruling that harshly criticized the social workers, a new ministry court document says its employees relied on the advice of experts and were just doing their jobs when they kept the children with their father.
“(The trial judge) found that social workers acted negligently and in bad faith in removing the children from (the mother’s) care … and supporting (the father’s) custody application … In reaching these conclusions, the trial judge ignored relevant evidence and drew inferences that did not rationally emerge from the evidence,” says the document, which outlines the province’s reasons for appealing a B.C. Supreme Court ruling in the case known as J.P. (the mother’s initials) vs. the Ministry for Children and Family Development.
Also this week, The Sun has learned the main social worker in the J.P. case — who was the most disparaged by the judge — is now leading meetings with Delegated Aboriginal Agencies about a new centralized screening system used by the ministry.
Bill Yoachim, executive director of Kwumut Lelum Child & Family Services in Nanaimo, said in a brief interview he is concerned social worker William Strickland is heading the ministry meetings about the system, which is supposed to improve services to clients and reduce employee workload. In response to questions from The Sun, a ministry spokesperson would not comment specifically about Strickland’s job.
When asked Wednesday to defend her ministry’s decision to appeal this case, children’s minister Stephanie Cadieux would only say that government is seeking clarity from the appeal court on child-protection practice.
But J.P.’s lawyer, Jack Hittrich, alleged the government’s document contains factual errors, ignores sexual assault findings by the trial judge, and causes “tremendous hardship” to his client, who is portrayed as mentally unfit throughout the 90 pages.
“The province’s attitude and intransigence is well exemplified,” said Hittrich, who has yet to file his response.
In his decision last year, Justice Paul Walker found Strickland violated policy by signing a letter that cleared the father of abuse, that he tried to dissuade the director of child welfare and the Vancouver police from investigating the mother’s allegations that the father had sexually abused their four children, that he told his superiors that the mother had such significant mental illness that she was at risk of harming her kids, and that he was partly responsible for the ministry sending a report to court that was full of errors.
But the factum filed in court by the province this week defends Strickland and the other employees, saying the judge erred when he found they acted “with reckless disregard for the welfare of four young children,” arguing instead they acted “diligently and in good faith” to navigate the complicated child custody case.