Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 21, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba TOP NEWS A3 THURSDAY MARCH 21, 2024 ● ASSOCIATE EDITOR, NEWS: STACEY THIDRICKSON 204-697-7292 ● CITY.DESK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM Sentencing hearing continues for high school leader who sexually abused students Disgraced coach apologizes to victims A FTER a full day of lawyers tell- ing a judge how long he should go to prison, disgraced high school football coach Kelsey McKay stepped up to a microphone late Wednesday afternoon and apologized for his “be- trayal” of the young athletes he sexual- ly abused over the course of a decade. “I would like to apologize to all the victims and their families for the hurt, grief, shame and sorrow that I have caused them,” McKay said, reading from prepared notes, his back to sev- eral victims and their family members seated in the court gallery. “I know this hurt and betrayal will affect them all for the rest of their lives,” McKay said. “One hundred per cent of the responsibility lies with me. My goal for the future is to learn more about myself and the cause, events and circumstances that regretfully have brought us all to this moment. With this continued evolution and education of myself, in the future I will be a positive and responsible member of our com- munity and society.” McKay pleaded guilty last July to nine counts of sexual assault and two counts of luring in relation to nine teen- age victims he had coached during his years at Vincent Massey Collegiate and Churchill High School. The offences he admitted to hap- pened 10 to 20 years ago, when McKay was in his 30s and 40s. Most of his vic- tims were between the ages of 15 and 18. Prosecutor Katie Dojack has recom- mended provincial court Judge Ray Wyant sentence McKay to 25 years in prison, while defence lawyers Josh Weinstein and Lisa LaBossiere urged Wyant to consider a sentence of just over 13 years. Wyant will sentence McKay at a later date. McKay remains free on bail. According to an agreed statement of facts provided to court, McKay tar- geted both students and athletes he coached and was known to give special attention to students who had difficult home lives or absent parents. McKay invited teen victims to his home to “hang out” and watch football or movies. He hosted team hot tub par- ties, provided his victims with alcohol, and showed some of them pornography. McKay’s behaviour escalated to pro- viding one-on-one sexual massages and masturbating some victims. McKay gave nicknames to some of his victims’ genitals, sent them sexualized text messages and would ask them to kiss him on the cheek. Several victims described feeling frozen when McKay assaulted them, not knowing how to fend off his advan- ces. Much of the sentencing debate Wed- nesday centred on discussion of the 2020 Supreme Court of Canada decision known as Friesen, which ruled that sen- tences for child sex offenders should increase as society’s understanding of the great harm inflicted on children deepens. Weinstein and LaBossiere argued the 25-year sentence recommended by the Crown was far too harsh, even with the Friesen “reset,” and pointed to several cases both pre- and post-Friesen they argued resulted in lower sentences for more serous offences. “Twenty-five years in a penitentiary is excessive, it’s crushing and cannot be the result of a measured, reasoned analysis,” LaBossiere said. Defence submissions included little reference to McKay’s personal history, except to indicate he has an Indigenous background and was raised in a stable, two-parent household. Weinstein said McKay’s entry of guilty pleas before he knew what sen- tence the Crown would be seeking was a significant expression of remorse. “This was never set for trial, that was never the discussion,” Weinstein said. “This isn’t someone who held out and said let’s wait and see how many vic- tims show up (for trial).” Dojack argued a pre-sentence report and forensic risk assessment provided to court show McKay has little insight into the harm he caused his victims, one of whom took his own life after Mc- Kay was arrested in April 2022. In one of the reports, McKay main- tained he had never used violence or force against his victims, and charac- terized his actions as “taking your ad- miration too far,” because he was lonely and physically attracted to the victims. “He is still to this day trying to char- acterize his egregious offending as non-violent… despite the many, many acts of sexual violence against chil- dren,” Dojack said. “The lack of insight present … should be a concern.” The forensic risk assessment found McKay was a “low-to-moderate” risk to reoffend sexually and characterized McKay’s actions as “out of character” and “atypical.” “This was not an isolated incident, nor was it out of character,” Dojack said. “This pattern of behaviour over years defined his character.” dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca DEAN PRITCHARD MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES Former Winnipeg high school coach Kelsey McKay told victims and their families in court Wednesday ‘one hundred per cent of the responsibility lies with me.’ Family says patient with dementia not properly supervised Negligence led to woman’s death, lawsuit against care home claims THE family of a woman with dementia, who died after she was strangled while tangled in a torn curtain in an unlocked room at a downtown Winnipeg care home, has filed a lawsuit against its operators for negligence. The civil claim was filed by Martin Pollock of Winnipeg law firm Pollock & Company in Court of King’s Bench last week on behalf of the family of 63-year- old Lucille Fontaine. The family is seeking $110,000 in damages under the Fatal Accidents Act and special damages, including funeral expenses, plus court costs and interest, in her January 2023 death. The operators of Beacon Hill Lodge on Fort Street — Revera Inc., which managed the home at the time, Axium Extendicare LTC II LP, Extendicare LTC II GP and Axium Extendicare — are named as defendants. None have filed statements of de- fence. The court documents allege the oper- ators knew that Fontaine needed super- vision as she had a tendency to wander, but despite that, she was left alone for a time on the night of Jan. 11, 2023. An obituary indicates Fontaine was diag- nosed with dementia at the age of 60. Between about 11:50 and 11:58 p.m. that night, Fontaine went wandering on her floor in the long-term care home unsupervised and ended up in an un- used room, say the court papers. “While alone in the room, Irene’s head and neck got trapped in a hole of a fabric bed curtain,” reads the claim. “As a result, Irene struggled, could not extract herself and was asphyxiated.” A health-care aide found her and called for paramedics, who arrived at about 12:08 a.m. She was rushed to St. Boniface Hospital, where she was pro- nounced dead. The court documents allege the care home’s employees caused or contrib- uted to Fontaine’s death through neg- ligence, including by failing to inform themselves of her medical condition, her need of supervision and allowing her to wander. Further, the claim alleges, the em- ployees did not inspect the room or re- move the damaged curtain. The family’s lawsuit says the workers failed to follow the operators’ policies for caring for people with dementia. The court documents also claim the operators contributed to Fontaine’s death by failing to adequately train employees in caring for residents with dementia, continuing to educate them to use critical thinking on behalf of residents, failing to conduct inspections of staff to ensure Fontaine was being given reasonable care and that appro- priate standards were met. The lawsuit claims the operators breached their duty of care to Fontaine by failing to secure the room in which she died, failing to remove the curtain or inspect the room, by equipping the room with the curtain in the first place and by failing to implement a system to ensure the home and rooms were free of hazards. A spokesperson for Extendicare, which took over the downtown Winni- peg care home from Revera along with many other facilities as Revera moved out of the business of managing retire- ment homes in Canada, deferred ques- tions to Revera. Revera did not return a request for comment Wednesday. In 2022, Revera entered an agree- ment for Extendicare to take over management of most of its long-term care homes in Manitoba. Extendicare’s management of Beacon Hill Lodge took effect Aug. 1, 2023. At the onset of the COVID-19 pan- demic, Revera owned and operated 11 long-term care and retirement homes in Winnipeg and one in Brandon. Among Revera’s long-term care prop- erties were Maples and Parkview Place personal-care homes, where residents of experienced disproportionately deadly consequences when COVID spread. An outbreak at Maples that was declared Oct. 20, 2020, infected 231 residents and staff, killing 56. Four Manitoba retirement homes that had been managed by Revera were transferred to Quebec-based real estate management firm Cogir, also in 2023. erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca ERIK PINDERA RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES Beacon Hill Lodge on Fort Street Parents charged in baby’s drug death TWO parents have been charged after their three-month-old child died of fentanyl and methamphetamine poi- soning more than two years ago. Police and fire paramedic crews rushed to a home in the Westdale neighbourhood on Feb. 2, 2022, after reports of an unresponsive baby girl. The child was taken to hospital and pronounced dead days later. Winnipeg Police Service child- abuse investigators began a “lengthy and very exhaustive” probe into Layla Mattern Muise’s death shortly there- after. Autopsy and toxicology reports later determined Layla’s death re- sulted from exposure to fentanyl and methamphetamine, police said Wed- nesday. Detectives consulted with Crown attorneys, who authorized charges against the parents. “It’s brutal,” WPS spokesman Con- st. Jason Michalyshen said. “When it’s a situation that could so easily be prevented and to lose such a young life — I can’t put it into words how tragic it is, how upsetting it is, for investiga- tors, for us … to relay this information to the public. It’s challenging, it really is hard.” Michalyshen said autopsies and toxicology reports take a significant amount of time to complete, with the latest medical report coming in Sep- tember. Detectives conducted numer- ous interviews with the parents and it took legwork to identify and interview other witnesses, Michalyshen said. Christopher Joseph Mattern, 39, and Alison Kimberly Muise, 40, were ar- rested Tuesday and charged with fail- ing to provide the necessaries of life. Michalyshen said those charges were laid — as opposed to criminal negligence causing death, for ex- ample — based on what detectives were able to determine about the cir- cumstances. Police discovered multiple different people may have been consuming il- licit substances at the home on West- grove Way. “The parents’ role — any parent’s role — is to protect the child at all times, at all costs,” Michalyshen said. He implored parents and caregivers who aren’t in a position to care for their children to seek help and sup- port. “The methamphetamine or the fentanyl found in the child’s system could have been … from anyone, not necessarily the parents, but the par- ents’ role is to ensure their child is safe at all times and that’s where this charge comes into play.” Muise has no past criminal convic- tions in Manitoba, court records show. She’s next due in court on April 3. Mattern was convicted last October of two separate assaults — one com- mitted in March 2023 and the other in June 2023 — and sentenced to time served. He was also convicted of two court order breaches. In May 2017, he was convicted of uttering threats and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose. He was given a two-year suspended sen- tence and supervised probation. Mattern was due in bail court Wed- nesday on the new charge. The three-month-old’s death marks the second time recently that city po- lice have charged caregivers in the drug poisonings of their children. On Feb. 5, Winnipeg police said the parents of a one-year-old girl had been charged with manslaughter after she ingested fentanyl. They waited hours before calling for help, police said. Hanna Boulette ingested a large amount of the drug on March 3, 2023, and died from fentanyl poisoning, po- lice said last month. Police said her father called 911 to report Hanna had been found unresponsive at their Stel- la Avenue home. Garry Daniel Adrian Bruce, 38, and Sabrina Faye Boulette, 37, have been charged in the girl’s death. erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca ERIK PINDERA ;