CONVICTING MOM OF CORRUPTING CHILD IS TOUGH

Vague, Outdated Wording Open To Misuse

When the mother of a 12-year-old girl who allegedly lived in a north
Toronto crack house was charged this week with "corrupting children,"
the circumstances appeared so horrific that at first glance a
conviction might appear certain.

Yet such criminal charges are highly unusual, requiring special
permission from the provincial attorney-general before they are laid,
and there's a reason for that, says Toronto lawyer and former
prosecutor David Butt, a long-time specialist in children's rights:
The wording of the charge, which is so vague and outdated that police
often seek proof of some different offence.

"In 13 years of prosecuting I never saw one of these and I haven't
since then," Mr. Butt said of the Criminal Code's Section 172.

"It is very rarely used, and the reason for that is that it is open to
misuse, because it is so broad reaching." Print Edition - Section Front

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In this instance, the allegations look to be highly
specific.

Mentally challenged, the child was allegedly forced over a period of a
year to take drugs - cocaine was found in her system by Toronto
Children's Aid authorities - and to participate in sex acts with at
least six men, aged 19 to 55, who face multiple charges of sexual assault.

Trapped in a bleak public housing complex near Rexdale Boulevard and
Highway 27, the child lived in a home described as a haven for crack
dealers and smokers.

The 42-year-old mother and the six men are to appear in court in
September. (An arrest warrant was issued for one of the accused
yesterday after he failed to make an interim court
appearance.)

"So a case like this one demonstrates - if the allegations are borne
out in court - that there are occasions where one can see that at the
heart of the legislation is a good idea," Mr. Butt said. "Parents do
have the power to place their children in extremely inappropriate
circumstances that do amount to criminal conduct.

"But the wording [of the section] is a holdover from Victorian times
and it is problematic."

It reads:

"Every one who, in the home of a child, participates in adultery or
sexual immorality or indulges in habitual drunkenness or any other
form of vice, and thereby endangers the morality of the child or
renders the home an unfit place for the child to be is guilty of an
indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding
two years."

And there's another problem, says Roz Prober, a Winnipeg-based
children's welfare advocate who operates the Beyond Borders
organization and watched recently as a similar prosecution in her city
fell apart.

"The onus is on the Crown to prove the case ... based on the
credibility of witnesses," she said.

The Winnipeg case involved a 41-year-old woman found by the judge to
have committed "an act of moral depravity" but not a crime for
steering a 13-year-old runaway into a life of drugs and
prostitution.

What undermined the prosecution's case, Mr. Justice John Scurfield of
the Court of Queen's Bench concluded, was the teenager's lack of
credibility under cross-examination.

Something similar could happen with the Toronto case, Ms. Prober
suggested.