Coroner's Jury Rules Death: a 'Homicide'

Thursday, June 14, 2007 06:53 PM

Just under three hours of deliberations and the Coroner's jury in the inquest into the death of four-year-old Amanda Jean Simpson has delivered its verdict and four recommendations.

The jury has ruled Amanda's death was not accidental and has classified it as a homicide.

As for the recommendations, they are as follows:

1. Hold a Coroner's inquest regarding a questionable death in a timely manner.

2. To the Minister responsible for the Ministry of Children and Family Development: to form focus groups for all MCFD offices in B.C. comprised of pertinent partners such as: the RCMP, school counsellors, daycare workers, etc. to evaluate the performance of each MCFD office with a mandatory action plan from the designated director to address any concerns listed in a timely manner.

3. To the Minister responsible for the Ministry of Children and Family Development: continuous upgrading and training for all case workers, team leaders, directors, etc. in the MCFD regarding child protection, interviewing, investigations, and risk assessment.

4. To the Minister responsible for the Ministry of Children and Family Development: to review the monies allocated to the Ministry of Children and Family Development to increase resources aimed at child protection.

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Posted on Thursday, June 14, 2007 06:53 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: snappi on June 14 2007 7:29 PM

Wow! Okay now what? Are the responsible parties going to be held accountable???

Posted by: thereasonableman on June 14 2007 8:21 PM

Of course not. It's all YOUR fault because you didn't give the government enough tax money. Everything will be better if you just empty your pockets into the tray.

Just because you suddenly have loads of cash won't make people any more intelligent, perceptive, or diligent.

With 22 reports on file, and nobody (especially police) had interviewed the person allegedly responsible, at any point in time, is not a matter of caseload, training or funding, it's a matter of common sense and a matter of being interested in what you are doing.

The police should have interviewed this guy after so many reports that went nowhere, because an experienced, trained investigator is much more sensitive to deception and stories that don't fit the evidence. The kids should also have been working with a psychologist or counsellor.

As much as social workers may be good at doing something about the problem, a police officer is much better at detecting the problem. That's why they call them detectives.

This was totally preventable.

Posted by: REALIST on June 14 2007 9:38 PM

Yes, it was preventable and the answer is to fund enough case workers so that all reports can be investigated. The number of reports received by the Ministry is an average number for all cases. If you do not have enough staff, how do you judge which case to look into? The government is to blame for refusing to properly fund the Ministry. It is not a case of the average Joe not paying enough taxes, it is the simple fact that corporations no longer pay taxes on their profit. This is why we are seeing funding problems in the Ministry, our roads are falling apart and our healthcare is falling behind so quickly. Restart taxing corporations again and voila, we will have the needed funding for all our problems.

Posted by: Andyfreeze on June 14 2007 10:32 PM

The government HAS the money to better fund these agencies.
They just won't use it for such trivial things.
Keep cutting back and scoop even more money to waste.
They are more into mega-projects and monuments to themselves,like Olympics etc.
Politics failed this poor kid and someone has to pay for that.
So start at the top and work down, because this has happened just once too often!

Posted by: snappi on June 14 2007 10:52 PM

I understand that the government is to blame for allot of things, and yes if the Ministy along with the RCMP had more staff they could have been a little more diligent in pursuing this family's issues and probably prevented this poor little girls death. But what about the the parties directly involved in this "homicide?" It makes me sick to my stomach when I think about all the pain and suffering that this child had to go through just so that new recommendations could be made. Wheres the justice in that?

Posted by: heidi1555 on June 15 2007 8:10 AM

There is no justice for us small people in this crazy world snappi. If one worker ever had to raise his/her eyebrow at this family then that's all what should've been needed to save this little girls life. People need to step up and quit ignoring. Everyone is so afraid to speak out about the real issues and hope the problems will just go away in a pile of paperwork that takes years to hit the bottom.