Judge backs CAS seizure of spanked children

St. Thomas parents used the scriptures to defend discipline
National Post (Canada), Oct. 12, 2002
http://www.nationalpost.com/

A child care worker who entered a family home, interviewed seven children and examined them for marks and questioned their mother before abruptly seizing the youngsters didn’t trample upon the parents’ constitutional rights, an Ontario Court judge has decided.

The one-page ruling from Judge Eleanor Schnall was quietly released two days ago to lawyers involved in the so-called “spanking case” that unfolded in a St. Thomas, Ont., courtroom last spring under a blanket of secrecy.

Unusually, since the case had been on hold since last June in order to give Judge Schnall time to make this critical decision, the judge did not release her reasons. Normally, judges either deliver a ruling orally, and follow up with written reasons, or reserve important decisions until they can provide a proper legal rationale.

The ruling means that all the evidence heard over about a month in what is known as a “voir dire” proceeding — including various statements made by the children and both their mother and father — is now admissible in the child-protection hearing proper.

It is in effect a victory for the Child and Family Services of St. Thomas and Elgin County agency, whose worker, Shelley West, decided the seven children were “in need of protection” when she went to the family house in the town of Aylmer on July 4 last year.

The youngsters spent only about three weeks in foster care in the summer of 2001 before being returned to their home, but their parents have been living under a supervision order ever since, prohibited from this sort of discipline and required to allow workers to inspect the children.

There were no marks or bruises found on any of the youngsters, and in videotaped interviews with police made shortly afterward, they all appeared healthy, well-adjusted and happy, if distressed that they had been wrenched from the bosom of their home.

Ms. West, who testified at the voir dire proceeding, made her decision to apprehend them based in the main on what their mother, who at the time spoke little English, told them about her disciplinary practices.

The mother admitted to using various objects, including a belt, a clothes hangar and the metal end of a fly swatter, to spank her offspring.

Both parents are members of the fundamentalist AKPC_IDS += "952,";

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