Mother denies sexually assaulting children on stand: 'I didn't do it'

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The situation, she wrote, was “desperate.”

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Mother denies sexually assaulting children on stand: 'I didn't do it' Back to video

Swimming in debt, the mother of children who accuse her and their father of years of sadistic sexual and physical abuse wrote in her personal journals that the family’s finances were in chaos.

Assistant Crown attorney Jennifer Moser pointed out while cross-examining the woman that a journal entry in November 2010 noted that family had $147,000 in personal debt for credit cards and various loans, on top of a $332,000 mortgage.

“I feel like crying every day. I don’t know how to get out of this debt. We have a really good pay cheque but it is eaten up completely each month with the debt we owe,” she wrote in 2012 in one of three journals recovered from the woman’s apartment at the time of her arrest in 2021.

This wasn’t a new situation for the family. The financial problems were so extreme that several years earlier, despite her husband having a well-paying professional job, they had a newspaper route for five weeks to help offset the debt, Moser suggested. The woman said that money was for a family trip to Central America, but said later most of that trip was paid for by a relative.

The paper route began at about 4 a.m. and the woman agreed that one of the complainants was only eight at the time. They and two other siblings were taken along to carry out the work. She disagreed with the suggestion some younger children were left home alone without a babysitter – even though one of the children told child welfare services that they were left alone while the parents were out working.

The job didn’t pay much, she said. Moser said that their financial situation called for desperate action.

“There’s a lot of easier way for you to make money,” Moser said. “That’s selling your child for sex in 2005 when you were so desperate for money.”

“No, not at all…. I completely disagree. I never did that ever,” she said.

Being sold to strangers for sex is just one of the many shocking allegations levelled by the four children of the couple who are now in their sixth week of evidence at their London Superior Court trial. The long days of testimony have included detailed descriptions of inhumane treatment by the parents, who, to the outside world projected as a normal, religious, middle-class family with accomplished, obedient children.

The 54-year-old woman and 57-year-old man have pleaded not guilty to all charges. At the start of the trial six weeks ago, they faced 47 counts including incest, sexual assault, forcible confinement and assault. At the end of the Crown’s case last week, the number of charges was reduced to 41.

The identities of the children are protected by a court-ordered publication ban. They gave lengthy descriptions of horrifying and routine abuse. They also said that their mother made daily journal entries in books that were stored in plastic totes. Only three were recovered by the police.

The woman began testifying last week and denied almost all of the harrowing acts that her children claim she did. But she did admit to scattered instances of spanking, throwing a doll at one of her children, hitting another with a book, throwing water that wasn’t boiling as one complainant said, giving the children “a few drops” of Tabasco sauce when they talked back at her and ripping a shirt off one child because she deemed it inappropriate.

She also admitted Monday during Moser’s withering cross-examination to tying children together with duct tape in an effort to make them get along and putting moving tape on their mouths if they were rude.

“I was trying to find a solution that was more proactive than a punishment,” she said. “I thought it would work and they would understand they can’t say certain things.”

Moser pointed out that the woman never apologized to the children. “Everything that happened happened really quickly. I was sorry and I am sorry and I apologize to each of the children,” the woman said.

She denied pushing the children down the stairs or locking them up in basements, sheds and cupboards. She said that one of her daughters was never forced to wear a dog collar as she had told the court.

Moser noted several times that her answers to questions last week from defence lawyer Philip Millar were often that incidents “couldn’t” have happened, instead of saying they “wouldn’t” happen. She agreed that the children contributed financially to the household income.

The woman denied any of the sexual assaults that were described to the jury by the complainants. “I didn’t do anything like that to any of them,” she said, before pausing. “I don’t see how anyone could. I didn’t do it. I love my children.”

Moser suggested that the woman was “losing control” with the children. The jury has heard evidence of the mother “yelling and screaming” at the children.

“My children had a ton of freedom to do so many choices and so many things,” the woman said as she cried.

“I am grateful they were obedient at the times when they were obedient,” she said. “I love my children, I loved my children. I was proud of them. I was proud that they were fun, that they were curious, that they were smart, that they were willing to be excited about doing things and going places and I gave them every opportunity that I could think of that was there for them to succeed.

“You never heard any of them say that when they were testifying about you,” Moser said.

“All I know is I loved them. I tried my very, very best,” she said.

She returns for more Crown cross-examination on Tuesday.

jsims@postmedia.com