Andrea Giesbrecht, woman convicted of concealing infants’ remains, denied bail

The Winnipeg mother found guilty of hiding six dead babies in a U-Hail storage locker will remain behind bars during her appeal.

Andrea Giesbrecht, 44, was sentenced to 8.5 years in jail, minus time served, in July 2017.

Giesbrecht’s lawyer told the court her sentence was extraordinarily harsh. “If there is no homicide here, we don’t need such a severe sentence,” defence lawyer Greg Brodsky.

Giesbrecht appealed that decision last fall, and applied for bail so she could be free while waiting for her appeal case to make its way through the justice system.

After months of delays, Justice Michel Monnin presided over Giesbrecht’s bail hearing March 28 and reserved his decision.

That decision is now public, and in it Monnin writes the main reason he decided against granting bail revolved around where Giesbrecht would live if she was let out.

Giesbrecht wanted to live in her own residence, but Monnin didn’t like that idea, preferring that she live in a structured and supervised facility.

“I indicated at that time that I viewed her residing at a facility of The Elizabeth Fry Society of Manitoba Inc. as a preferred option. Counsel for the accused advised that there were no openings at this time,” Monnin wrote in his decision.

“The Court has now been advised by the Society itself, that not only is there no opening at a facility of the Society, the possibility of the accused ever being admitted to such a facility at any time is not possible because the mandate of the Society does not permit it to house federally sentenced prisoners.”

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Giesbrecht had stayed at the Society when she was previously out on bail.

Monnin wrote that if another release plan was presented in the future, he could possibly reconsider Giesbrecht’s application.