Meghan Hurley
Ottawa Citizen
The lawyer representing the father of an 11-year-old boy who escaped his Kanata basement after he was starved and tortured for months attacked the now teenager’s credibility in court Monday, calling him a liar with a behavioural problem.
Defence lawyer Robert Carew alleged in his cross-examination that the boy, who escaped on Feb. 12, 2013, in search of water, forged a higher mark on a test, wrote the word sex on a classmate’s paper, and stole chocolate from a teacher.
Carew argued that the boy’s father tried everything to help him but nothing worked. Court heard that the boy’s Grade 3 teacher wrote in an email to his parents that he bothered other students and that even though she warned him, he wasn’t capable of stopping.
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“You couldn’t be disciplined because you make up your own rules,” Carew told the boy. “You were pretty defiant, wouldn’t you say?”
In the boy’s eyes, his behaviour wasn’t all that bad and he told court he stole food because his father had been starving him.
It was for survival,” the boy testified. “I wanted to survive. I wanted to live.”
Carew said he thought the boy downplayed his behaviour. In April 2013, the boy allegedly tried to kick his foster mother so hard that he hurt his leg and had to go to the hospital. The boy testified that he had no recollection of that incident.
“Do you remember threatening your foster mom with a toy gun?” Carew asked. The boy couldn’t recall that, either.
In Children’s Aid Society records, the boy’s foster-mother described him as “very scary and intimidating,” Carew told court.
The boy saw his father that was and described in horrifying testimony earlier in that trial a miserable family vacation to Florida.
The boy testified that he was tied up for most of the trip but was allowed to go to the beach one day. The boy told court he had to wear the same soiled clothing during the trip and was starved until the end of the trip when he was given a sandwich and water.
In his cross-examination on Monday, Carew showed the boy photos from the Florida trip that he argued didn’t paint the picture of someone who had been tied up and starved.
The boy was eating at restaurants in two of the photos and wearing clean clothes, Carew said. The boy testified that one of the photos was taken on their way to Florida. Another photo showed the boy smiling in a Florida hotel holding a bottle of Gatorade.
“That picture speaks 1,000 words,” Carew told the boy. “You’re having a good time.”
The boy’s father and stepmother are being tried on charges of aggravated assault, forcible confinement and failure to provide necessities of life. The boy’s father is also charged with aggravate sexual assault.
The boy didn’t feel up to continuing the cross-examination on Monday afternoon and the trial was expected to continue on Tuesday morning.