Paul and Zabeth Bayne – Part 17 – The Bayne Campaign for Justice

Who is Responsible? Who will be held accountable? Who is it within the system who has a heart for justice?

I know the Baynes. I officiated the wedding of Zabeth and Paul a number of years ago. They were a happy family three years ago. Even happier in summer 2007 when Baby B arrived. Baby B. Bayne was removed from her parents’ home and custody on October 22, 2009. She has not been home since then. She is two years of age now. She was two months old when the B.C. Government service known as the Ministry of Children and Family Development separated her from her mother and father. She was two months old. Think of this. She was a nursing infant. Mother Zabeth and daughter Baby B were newly bonding. Zabeth had anticipated a daughter after giving birth to two sons. She was not unaccustomed to the behaviour and needs of an infant. Everything was as it should be in this happy family living in Hope, B.C.

Today, on the 30th of October 2009, over two years ago since Baby B was last in her parents’ home, Paul and Zabeth are living in hope, not Hope, but clinging to hopefulness. Not that they have reason to hope by virtue of affirming responses from the government unit that seized the child. All their phone calls are dead ended and their letters left unanswered. Rather, their hope is in the Lord, for these parents are people of faith. They are not weird and whacky. They are merely committed believers in Jesus Christ as the Son of God their Saviour. All they have ever desired was to nurture their children within a loving environment in which good values and morals would equip their children for life. And they are no longer living in Hope, B.C. any longer because they have lost their house to lawyers’ fees as they have struggled to recover their children and their family. They rent now. They work as night custodians so they can visit their children during day hours.

If you are following this case you know that Zabeth and Paul have not only lost custody of Baby B, but also their two small sons. They were taken as well on October 22, 2007 as the Bayne parents were placed under suspicion and investigation by local MCFD and Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A brief recap follows, the details of which are in previous posts.

Zabeth the nursing mother two years ago, found herself with a baby that suddenly wouldn’t nurse, was unresponsive and didn’t cry, following a terribly unfortunate incident in which one of her small boys fell on Baby B as she lay on a blanket on the floor. This accident and her baby’s symptoms concerned her enough that Paul and Zabeth took her to the local hospital. After a series of visits to several hospitals she was brought to Vancouver Sick Children’s Hospital where she received care and assessment. When one doctor concluded that Baby B’s condition was consistent with Shaken Baby Syndrome, the saga began.

The RCMP cleared the Baynes and the boys were returned but Baby B was retained. The boys’ were returned, sort of, under a supervision agreement which required Paul and Zabeth to live with their sons in Zabeth’s parents’ home. Is the presumption and gravity of some of these decisions becoming clear? Then in June of 2008 without justification the boys were also removed and they are still gone.

And still, regardless of how many letters the Baynes send, they seldom receive even the courtesy of a response, and never any answers of substance. They are compelled to go to a court of law where the future of their children and their family will be decided. It should break your heart. They cannot afford a lawyer. But when a lawyer takes this case, and one will, the shame and the scandal of the abuses of power that have hurt a family so badly will be exposed.