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The Quebec family of a slain seven-year-old girl is taking legal action against the province’s youth protection system and a local school service centre, seeking accountability for failing to act in the child’s disturbing death.
The $3.7-million lawsuit filed Monday comes about three and a half years after death of the child in Granby, Que. while in the care of her father and stepmother. The girl was found in critical condition on April 29, 2019, and died the next day in hospital.
The young victim, who was abused and malnourished, died of asphyxiation after being wrapped in layers of duct tape before her death. The child, and those involved in her death, cannot be named in order to protect the identities of other children who lived in the home where the murder took place.
Valérie Assouline, the family’s lawyer, detailed the horrific abuse the girl suffered in her short life. She said the victim showed up to school with blood in her nose and other injuries, and spoke of what was unfolding at home.
Assouline said reports were made to the province’s youth protection system on several occasions and the child’s death was preventable. The victim deserved to live with dignity and had the right to assistance when she was in danger, she added.
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“The negligence in this case is unparalleled,” Assouline told reporters.
The girl’s death, and the gruesome circumstances around it, sent shockwaves through the province and led to several investigations into child-welfare services. The case of the child — who had been followed by Quebec’s youth protection system from birth and was left in the custody of her father despite several reports of violence — led to an internal probe by the regional health authority, which found cracks in the system failed the girl.
In fact, the child’s paternal grandmother told reporters Monday that she had reported her own son to authorities before her granddaughter was killed.
“She was placed with her executioners,” Assouline said.
A separate investigation by Quebec’s human rights commission identified failures “at all stages” of the clinical and legal process designed to protect the girl and prompted an inquiry into the province’s youth protection system.
The girl’s mother said she hopes things will change within child-welfare services, but that it won’t bring back her daughter.
“They didn’t listen to us, they didn’t listen to her,” she said.
READ MORE: Quebec’s youth protection system needs ‘severe shift’ to help vulnerable children, inquiry finds
The Centre de services scolaire du Val-des-Cerfs, the local school centre named in the lawsuit, said in an email to Global News that it “has always been transparent in this sad and painful situation” but that it would not comment further due to the legal proceedings.
Meanwhile, Quebec’s Ministry of Health and Social Services told Global News in an email they acknowledge youth protection services face challenges they are continuously tackling, such as staff shortages and an increasing case load.
“We have fully collaborated with all investigations lead during the tragic events in Granby and several actions have been deployed in the past three years to improve the quality and access to services for youth in difficulty and their families,” spokesperson Marie-Claude Lacasse wrote.
Lacasse says the province has since nominated a national director of youth protection and has adopted a law to modify Quebec’s youth protection law in order to provide a better safety net for vulnerable families, among other measures.
Last December, the child’s stepmother was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 13 years after she was convicted of second-degree murder. She was also found guilty of forcible confinement.
The girl’s father, who used adhesive tape to restrain his daughter in their family home several hours before her death, was sentenced to four years in prison in early 2022.
— with files from Global News’ Gloria Henriquez and The Canadian Press
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