Mike on Crime

By Mike McIntyre
Winnipeg Free Press

The mother of two malnourished and neglected young girls pleaded guilty Monday to the rare charge of “corrupting children” after they were found living inside an inner-city crack house.

The accused — who can’t be named to protect the identity of the victims — is one of only a handful of Canadian parents to ever be convicted of the charge, court was told.

She will be sentenced later this year once a pre-sentence report is concluded. The woman remains free on bail but has lost custody of her children.

As the Free Press reported last week, police raided a Manitoba Avenue home in March 2006 and discovered a horrific scene inside.

Police found the two girls, aged five and eight, sleeping on the floor next to a cat litterbox filled with feces, court was told.

There was no food in the home ¬ — no fridge to be found. The girls’ beds had been broken apart, their mattresses instead used by junkies to shoot up inside the home. Dirt, garbage and animal feces were scattered throughout the residence, the toilets were clogged and a bathtub overflowed with dirty water.

Police had to break into the home to get access because the front and back doors had been fortified with lumber.

“When police arrived the girls were crying, begging the officers for food because they hadn’t eaten in days,” Crown attorney Anne Turner told court.

Police also found rocks of crack cocaine scattered throughout the home and a loaded, sawed-off shotgun.

The girls’ aunt, 31-year-old Michelle Laliberte, pleaded guilty last week to trafficking cocaine from her house and possessing the weapon. She was sentenced to three years in prison.

Laliberte was renting the home with her sister. Her own children — seven in total ¬ ¬ — had already been seized by social workers, court was told.

A drug user who spent a couple of days smoking crack in the house complained to police about the neglected children.