CHRISTIE'S FINAL SUBMISSION installment 8of10 Profiles of Paul and Zabeth / 496

Paul and Zabeth Bayne spent 2010 in court trying to prevent MCFD from taking forever, their three children who were removed on October 22, 2007. The judge did not return their children to them but let MCFD keep the children for 6 more months. Doug Christie is their legal counsel.

Yesterday you read points 18-20 from the transcript of Doug Christie's final SUBMISSION IN RESPONSE to Finn Jensen's closing summation delivered on Nov 4, 2010. This is the eighth installment of quotations from this public document. Submissions and Analysis, points 21-26 in Christie's own words…. "Mr. Jensen tries to facilitate and to be conciliatory."

"21. The rest of the day’s transcript is taken up with discussing revised access. Mr. Jensen tries to facilitate and to be conciliatory. Nonetheless the adversarial attitude of the director still shows through. Talking about visiting in the home as a venue, the judge wants to know why the Baynes cannot simply ask whoever is in charge. Jensen sees no problem in the request. The Baynes explain that their requests have been turned down and they need the judge to order it. Humeny fights a bit of a rearguard action, saying that they do not even know if the address exists. Quite unnecessary. It is arranged to make a home visit and this is the first ever by Humeny. I think that the court can by now appreciate what a struggle it is to deal with this director."

"22. Bayne profile. When a social worker does an assessment, it is just that. Not a risk assessment, or attitude or whatever. An assessment can be a simple straightforward statement of known facts in a person’s history and these facts will tell you most of what you need to know. We want to give you a factual profile of the Baynes, with as little colouring as possible. We do this simply to illustrate for the court what a totally different picture is drawn from the one portrayed by the ministry. An objective contrast. Mrs Bayne was born on July 22, 1972 and is 38 years old. She was raised in two-parent family and had one sister. Her father supported the family by owning and operating two body shops. Her mother worked part time as an art and music teacher. Family life was strongly centred around the Lutheran church and Zabeth went to church schools. She graduated from school at 18. She studied for her ARCT and graduated with first class honours. She worked as a music teacher in the family studio. Her sister taught violin, she taught piano and her mother taught theory and voice. She has played many concerts both as a soloist and in chamber ensemble. She has given a lot of time as a church pianist."

"23. Paul Bayne was born Dec 7th, 1975, age 34. He grew up in a two-parent family. His father was principal breadwinner and worked as a computer programmer and prison employee until retirement. Paul has two older siblings who are ten and thirteen years older than he, so they left home before he grew up. Like Zabeth, their home was strongly church centred and he spent his early education in church schools. He graduated from school normally and took further training as a fitness instructor and as a security officer. He also took art and literature courses and was exhibited in Chilliwack. He worked in a steelyard from 2000 until 2006, when he sustained a severe head injury and had to leave. Joint history. They got married in June 2001. Eventually they moved in with Zabeth’s parents so that they could both work and save up to buy a house. Kent was born Oct 18th, 2005. He was born prematurely and spent two weeks in the hospital. They then bought a home in Langley and were living there when Baden was born June 12th 2006. He was born at only 25.4 weeks and had to stay in hospital from June 12th to Sept 26th, over three months. In spite of the difficulties both parents made a point of spending time with their tiny child every day. There was a great deal to learn about caring for such an extremely premature child. Their doctor’s enthusiastic reference is in filed documents. To add to their difficulties Paul got injured and could not work. Bethany was born on August 3rd, 2007. You know the history from then on. Since the children were admitted to care and taken from their grandparents’ home, the parents have attended all access visits and this is confirmed by L. Humeny. They have taken jobs as night janitors in order to be able to attend visitations and court hearings. They have made huge financial sacrifices in the quest to have the children returned."

"24. Conclusion. This history is completely factual and what sort of portrait does it portray? It shows two young people with normal family homes and no special problems in their personal histories. They were diligent and reliable, acquiring many lifeskills. They were able to postpone and plan responsibly. They were raised with very strong values and went through some incredibly difficult times through the prematurity of their children and the loss of income. Yet they stayed together and had tremendous family support. As you know the maternal grandparents attend most access visits. They supported each other and showed the strength, resilience and faith to overcome adversity. You see this support before you at every court hearing. Do you really think that they look like people who would deliberately harm one of their cherished children?"

"25. Before going into detail on the individual doctors opinions three important points need addressing. There are principal symptoms. Subdural hematoma and retinal bleeding show brain damage. The SDH is caused by blunt impact trauma and this is not in dispute. The claim that the injury was caused by shaking is not tenable. There are two other injuries. One is the femoral damage, which is a chipping or separation of some of the bone. This is attributed to a pulling, or pulling and twisting injury on the leg. This is not in dispute. There is a ready explanation for this. Bethany underwent an X-ray exam on October 6th, 2007. Mrs. Bayne describes the struggle to restrain the distressed child for examination. As follows:"

"- This happened on Oct. 6, 2007 (I will confirm the date, but I know Dr. Sargent mentions this date in his report as it was the date she had her abdominal x-rays done at the Chilliwack Hospital under the direction of Dr. Ebesch.)
- While we waited in the emergency room, Dr. Ebesch came in with a nurse to do a spinal tap. The nurse laid over Bethany's leg area on the far side of the bed, Dr. Ebesch was by her waist on my side of the bed and I was beside him holding Bethany's head still. He took I believe three samples from her and they were bloody. She cried and tried to struggle free during this time.
- After this the radiologist came in to take us to have x-rays done of her abdomen. The technician laid Bethany on her back and pulled her legs down straight and strapped them down. She strapped her middle down and her head I believe. She asked me to work on keeping the soother in her mouth. Bethany did not like being held and strapped straight and again struggled.
- We returned to the emergency room after this but were called back as Bethany had too much gas and we had to have them taken again as they did not get a good view.
- We went back and again they pulled and strapped her legs down flat while she lay on her back, but then the tech started to deep massage her belly trying to move the gas around before she took any x-rays again. She did this for a few minutes and then strapped her middle and limited her head motions. More x-rays were then taken and we were moved back to emergency.”

"26 This clearly shows that enough force was exerted to cause the femoral fracture during the examination. One must bear in mind that although this examination took place when Bethany was nine weeks old, her developmental age was only three weeks. The impact injury to her took place at six weeks and she had been vomiting for days, which would further impair development. Dr. Sergeant confirms that the injury took place on or about October 6th which gives firm support to the probable cause. Now the cranial fracture. It is noted that Bethany sustained a significant skull fracture, but there has not been agreement on the extent. In fact Dr. Colbourne failed to detect it in her original report. The fracture later observed could not have been sustained by one child falling on the other. What was being observed was a small fracture caused by bumping heads, which had been greatly enlarged as the head visibly swelled due to prolonged SDH. The head enlargement was so marked that it was hard to miss that something was seriously wrong. Dr. Sergeant confirmed that the prolonged bleeding made accurate assessment impossible. The prolonged brain bleed also amply explains the retinal bleeding and is confirmed by defence doctors. One more important point. It has been shown over and over again that Mrs. Bayne was consistent in describing the sibling impact and it is confirmed that she took the baby to the doctor the next day. The experts assured her that this could not cause the injury and she and her husband must find an alternative explanation. When they tried to think of other possible causes, they were accused of changing their story. Catch 22. So we have a perfectly reasonable explanation that one accidental head collision caused a small fracture with multiple injurious consequences. Retinal bleeding, skull distension, enlargement of fracture and restraint injury."

to be continued on Monday .........