The B.C. criminal justice branch has announced it will not proceed with charges against a police officer and two paramedics in a case involving a teenaged Aboriginal girl whose tragic story was the subject of an extensive investigation by B.C.'s representative for children and youth.
Paige Gauchier died at 19 of a drug overdose in April 2013 in the Downtown Eastside after what Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond concluded was years of abuse, neglect and inaction from "front-line professionals and an indifferent social care system."
Two years before her death, police and paramedics responded to an intoxicated Gauchier in Delta after she complained of being beaten by six girls. Police nor paramedics reported the incident to the Ministry of Children and Family Development, which is why RCMP launched an investigation.
The criminal justice branch said in its findings released Tuesday that it found no evidence that would result in a conviction of the emergency personnel who responded to Gauchier on the early morning of Jan. 22, 2011 at a Delta gas station.
"In the circumstances, it would have been reasonable for the paramedics and police to conclude Ms. Gauchier was not a child in need of protection and that a report to a [ministry] director was neither appropriate nor necessary," the report said.
The report said Gauchier walked into a Delta gas station just after 2 a.m. complaining she had been beaten by six girls. She was intoxicated.
Paramedics determined her injuries were minor — she had a sore and bleeding nose — but recommended Gauchier go to hospital. She refused, the report said.
Police then spoke to Gauchier's uncle in Vancouver, who asked that she be sent by taxi to his residence. Police understood the uncle was Gauchier's guardian and that his niece lived with him. Gauchier, who was 17, was not in the care of the ministry at the time of the incident.
The RCMP investigated the case after Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs recommended police review Turpel-Lafond's report about Gauchier to determine if any offences of failing to report a child in need to the ministry had occurred. Phillip said he was "deeply and bitterly disappointed" in the criminal justice branch's decision.
Phillip said his organization will consult with its legal counsel to see what its next move will be on the file.
"We're not going to let it go," he told the Courier. "It's not closed, as far as we're concerned. Somebody needs to be held accountable. There needs to be greater accountability in the system."
In March, the RCMP completed its investigation and recommended Crown approve charges against the main police investigator and two paramedics for failing to report a child in need of protection to the ministry, which is contrary to a section of the Child, Family and Community Service Act.
"The first responders had no information suggesting that Ms. Gauchier was being abused or neglected by a parent or guardian," the criminal justice branch report said. "They indicated to the RCMP members investigating the alleged failure to report that they did not consider the incident reportable as there was no indications of a problem in Ms. Gauchier's home. One of the first responders noted that he saw no reason to report the matter of a 17-year-old who had been drinking alcohol, as that was something he came across on a regular basis, 'probably 10 times a day.'"
The report further stated that police and paramedics had no reason to suspect Gauchier's uncle or anyone else in his home supplied her with alcohol, or injured her that night.
"It is a reality of contemporary life that parents and guardians have limited ability to monitor and control the behaviour of children in their late teens," the report said. "It is not unusual for teenagers to be out late at night unsupervised and to be drinking. It is also not unusual for teenagers to become involved in physical altercations with their peers. Neither of these situations necessarily suggests neglect on the part of parents or guardians."
Note: This story has been updated since first posted.
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