WAIT A MINUTE! / Part 398 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

Some of you will be upset with me for trying this.

I am asking you to try on something hypothetical. Let's just suppose for a moment that either Paul or Zabeth did actually harm their baby girl in September 2007. If a non accident injury caused the medical issues that put her life at risk three years ago, one of these parents lost control. That's what one would conclude. These parents already had two sons. Affectionate and thoughtful nurture of these boys typified the Baynes' parental pattern. The arrival of a daughter was an astounding blessing to them. When she was merely weeks old, this hypothesis would propose that mommy or daddy lost it. It could hardly be deliberate cruelty. It couldn't be abuse of that nature. That would be unmistakeably a crime, a felony. Then what else could it be if not an accident or a crime? It would have to be the unfortunate outcome of a fit of impatience or annoyance or anger. A parent would have had to hit the child's head, or knock the child's head to the floor, some appallingly awful action. And if this had been done, one parent did it and the other would somehow learn or know that truth. Both would be complicit in this injury to a child because one perpetrated it and one concealed it. These two people would have to be without consciences or with flawed ethics.

That is not the Zabeth and Paul that their family and their friends know. It is not the parental couple that Judge Thomas Crabtree watched for twenty-two days in court.

Before their release and the dropped charges, when Zabeth and Paul were arrested, the events were so shocking to her that she had a physical, emotional meltdown and had to be hospitalized. That is not a manifestation of cover-up but violent astonishment and overwhelming fear at these out of control circumstances.

Permit me to carry the conjecture further. If one parent injured the child and the other knew about it, could they both be so steel-hearted that they would endure the sustained removal of all three of their children? If in those early weeks, Zabeth knew that Paul had injured their youngest child and if she herself assessed him as a risk, and if she were told that her three children would be returned to her if Paul did not have access to them, do you think that she would have chosen to be with Paul rather than her children? Or turn that equation around the other way, with Zabeth the guilty one and Paul the innocent parent. Is it reasonable to think that these two people would say “our love for one another is of greater importance to each of us than our children are, so we will hang in together and hope for the best in trying to regain custody?”

I will attempt one other scenario. Let's speculate that both Paul and Zabeth are innocent of having inflicted any harm to their third child, a helpless, infant daughter. This proposal includes an accidental injury that caused the initial injury that escalated with passing days. Let's further include a tumble of one sybling upon the infant at a time that approximates the start of the baby's physical distress. Let's suppose that Paul and Zabeth were absolutely desperate to have medical professionals ascertain what was wrong with this baby in her deteriorating condition back in 2007. Each failed visit to a hospital made them more frantic. This proposition portrays the parents as distraught and sick at heart when they learned both the severity of their child's injuries and the accusation against them of willfully hurting her. Then let's see them in this script immediately and always asserting their innocence, insistently, unwaveringly maintaining this innocence, through every attempt by the social worker team and legal counsel to make one of them cave. I can tell you now that Zabeth's maternal instincts are so powerful that she has weathered the chasm of suffering that have been these past three years and at last endured insidious, slanderous statements from a Ministry lawyer determined to end her motherhood. These parents have been so focused upon regaining their family, there is nothing that is more important to them as may be with some parents, not drugs, not alcohol, not personal vacation, travel, career opportunities, acquisitions, nothing! Nothing has sidetracked them. Not the Hope B.C. MCFD callousness and intimidation. Nothing! Oh, wait a minute. That's right, this latter storyline is the only one that is credible. Only this scenario explains what we have witnessed for three years. Only this one explains why Judge Crabtree has refused to act like other judicial lightweights who might cow-tow to the MCFD allegations. Instead he has increased visitation times for the parents and given them at home visitation. That's because this last version is not an hypothesis but the truth.

A GRIEF OBSERVED / Part 332 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

A Grandmother and a grandfather sat helplessly. Yesterday I described the small court room in which Mr. Jensen delivered the final hours of his Summation. The judge's bench and the clerk's desk and the table and chairs of the legal staff and defendants comprised most of the space. Of the nine remaining chairs, two were occupied by these grandparents. Zabeth's parents they are. I paid attention to them because I too am a grandparent, proud of it, loving the relationships with little people that it provides to me. I am special because those grandchildren are extraordinary. I, however, have unfettered access to my grandchildren. These two people do not.

So I watched them as the Jensen words cut them deeply. They sat motionless, staring ahead, no longer shocked by what they were hearing because they have grown accustomed to their savage sound. They were grieving I thought, hardly bearing the insinuations against their daughter or her husband, perhaps imagining the worst possible outcome of this hearing.

Jensen pointedly directed Judge Crabtree that (1) his honour must find that there is need for protection, and that (2) he must therefore order the Continuing Care of the children. With such intense statement of objective, I found it interesting that Jensen then mentioned that contrary to what some people were saying, there are more than two possible rulings from which Judge Crabtree may select his verdict. In fact he said there is a host of alternative rulings beside either a CCO or giving the children back to the parents. Among these he suggested that Judge Crabtree might issue a Temporary Care Order, or a Period of Supervision, or place them in temporary care while the parents take further steps to satisfy the Ministry that they are indeed risk-free as it were. These were proffered to the Judge it appeared, as considerations should the judge come to the conclusion that the risk is still there but that the CCO is too final for this particular case. Who knows the precise motivation other than Jensen? But he did underscore that there should be no misunderstanding, that the Director's desired and appropriate ruling is a CCO. Yet Jensen implied that these other options might be considered. The Judge asked for some guidance on a Last Chance Order and that definition was discussed for a few moments.

Now all of this was at the conclusion of the first couple of hours during which Jensen reestablished Dr. Jane Gardner's paediatric ophthalmology qualifications and revisited her testimony concerning how she arrived at her diagnosis of the injuries, her opinion about extent of force needed to produce these injuries, her reactions to the hypotheses of the Baynes' experts. Then he focused upon Dr. Alexander's credentials and testimony, the foundation for his opinions being clinical records rather than information from Dr. Colbourne Jensen said. Alexander had disagreed with any theories that a short fall and particular that of a toddler upon the reclining infant could produce the extent of injuries Baby B sustained. Those injuries included subdural hemorrhages on both sides of the brain, retinal bleeding, a skull fracture and a chip off the long bone of the left femur. His testimony was that this was only due to a blunt force impact together with acceleration and deceleration. He even said that this force was the equivalent of that experienced in a car crash or a large fall from a great height, or child abuse. Well that's mighty frightening if it is to be believed. But that is precisely the obstacle. It does not have to be believed because it is still one man's theory against how many was it? Ten experts. Whose expertise Jensen discounted for numerous reasons stated in court. And that is his job. And the Judge's responsibility will be to conclude what and who is believable. What can be viewed as definitive?

Oh, I know, I know, Jensen would quickly respond to that. I will share again more of the Jensen summation tomorrow although I feel I have given him far too much air time or blog space. The transcript of these several days of Jensen are being prepared now.