This is a story that has been a year in the making.

And it’s not over – not quite yet.

We first spoke with a Vankleek Hill woman in April of 2022 when she wanted to share her story as a warning. She had invited someone to stay with her because he was struggling financially. They became intimately involved briefly, but that ended. He continued to stay with her. Then, one evening, he physically assaulted her. She managed to call the police.

Now, more than a year later, she has spent thousands of dollars on physiotherapy, has lost income due to being unable to work for a time and has spent the past year with the outcome of the case hanging over her head.

Let’s call her Maureen.

In addition to racking up about $3,000 in physiotherapy bills to date, she paid for the ambulance which delivered her to the hospital after picking her up at her home. As a result of being struck repeatedly in the head and face in early 2022, she suffered a jaw injury, concussion and whiplash. Today, she still has not recovered the full use of her jaw. A self-employed person, she had to take time off work and does not have extended health insurance.

But she’s still standing and she wants to share the story of the slow erosion of trust on two fronts. One: her trust eroded after she tried to help someone that she thought had fallen on hard times. Two: in the last year, her faith in the legal system has been shaken.

She also says that support promised by Prescott-Russell Victim Services after her trauma was not there. After an initial contact with a promise for support, she never heard from Victim Services again. She obtained an extra set of locks from a friend and changed the locks on her house on her own.

She has nothing but praise for the police, who responded rapidly and adds that the service she received from the paramedics was likewise excellent.

Maureen says that both video and audio footage of the attack recorded by her surveillance cameras was provided to the police. There is also the 911 call she made in which she states that she had already been punched three times. In fact, she says, she was still being assaulted when the police entered her home.

Despite what she felt was solid evidence, Maureen was shocked to learn during an initial meeting with the Crown Attorney that they were leaning toward either a conditional or complete discharge for the offence.

She requested a second meeting with the Crown, and during that meeting she says she learned that the Crown had not viewed any of the audio/video footage that the police had provided, nor was the Crown aware that the assault had only ended when the police pulled her assailant off of her. According to Maureen, she learned (to her dismay), a plea deal had already been offered and could not be rescinded.

“Since the assault, I have been in a fog most of the time,” she said in May 2022. She has since fallen a couple of times, describing herself as newly “accident-prone.”

Her main message is to other women to beware of people who may seem down on their luck. She describes the current tight rental situation and says that taking in a boarder who could not find a place to live but who would pay part of the rent seemed like a good move at the time. He worked different hours and she rarely saw him, she recalls.

But as a stash of money dwindled and she realized that he had a drinking problem, she looks back now and realizes that she should have told him to move out.

“He told a good story,” she says ruefully, realizing later that he was texting other local women in the area and that he frequented local bars. Maureen said she had sympathy for him, because he was not from the region and did not have local connections. No longer involved intimately, they had become what she considered friends.

“I am an outsider here,” Maureen continued. “I know this is a friendly community but it is hard to make good friends and so, I think I felt sorry for him because he was an outsider, too,” she continued.

As she got to know him, he related stories about “losing it” on the job.

“When I think back, that was a sign that he had a temper. But I had not seen that side of him,” she related. “I know I should have done something sooner, before anything (violent) like this happened, but it’s easy to say that after the fact. Now, I just want to be sure that no one else is taken in by him,” she says, alluding to the fact that the person who harmed her physically is still out and about in Eastern Ontario.

She is finding it hard to recover from the incident. “You never think something like this can happen to you. I was living a quiet life and nothing like this has ever happened to me,” she explained.

The case has continued, with delays, for more than a year. She related that her assailant had an attorney, then didn’t, which lead to a postponement while he attempted to secure legal aid. In the end, he was unable to secure legal aid and represented himself.

By early December of last year, Maureen said he had agreed to plead guilty to obtain the conditional discharge that the Crown had offered, rather than electing to go to trial.

Throughout the process, she had the support of a Victim Liaison worker and as the proceedings progressed, Maureen decided that she wanted to make a victim impact statement. According to the federal government department of justice website, “A victim impact statement is a written statement that describes the physical or emotional harm, property damage, or economic loss that the victim of an offence has suffered. The Court must take the statement into account when sentencing an offender.”

But Maureen says that to her surprise, after being told that she had time to prepare and submit a victim impact statement to be presented at a sentencing hearing, sentencing took place when the assailant entered a plea in January of this year. On that date, the judge issued an order for his discharge with several conditions. A probation order is in force for one year or until January 13, 2024. Because the matter was concluded on that day, she did not get the chance to submit or read her own victim impact statement. She relates that the judge asked if there was a victim impact statement and that the Crown Attorney replied that he had not received one.

Although sentencing can take place upon a guilty plea being accepted or when someone is found guilty, a sentencing hearing can happen days or weeks later. Maureen says that she had been asking the Crown Attorney questions about the victim impact statement, and had been receiving replies through the Victim Liaison worker, clearly indicating to the Crown’s awareness of her interest in submitting the document.

She still plans to write the Victim Impact Statement and Maureen says that his Probation Officer has agreed to read it directly to her assailant for her.

“I know everybody is overworked,” Maureen says, but she is still left feeling that all of the evidence was not reviewed each time the case came up for consideration by the Crown Attorney.

“The police did an excellent job, but all of the evidence was not looked at,” she says.

She plans to file a complaint about the lack of follow-through as the case was handed off from one Crown Attorney to another as well as having her legal right to make a victim impact statement denied to her.

The Review contacted the Crown Attorney’s office in L’Orignal to ask about the case and was referred to the Communications Office of the Ministry of the Attorney General.

“Victims have the right to convey their views about decisions to be made that affect their rights under the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights and to have those views considered. Prosecutors must strive to ensure that the interests of victims are considered at every stage of the prosecution, and that efforts are made to keep victims in criminal proceedings informed, particularly with respect to major developments such as a plea resolution. In accordance with the Crown Prosecution Manual, as soon as feasible after a finding of guilt, the Prosecutor must ensure reasonable steps are taken to provide the victim with the opportunity to prepare a Victim Impact Statement, and to inform the victim of their right to present it to the court,” according to the Ministry of the Attorney General.

The email reply also stated, “Crown Prosecutors have significant discretion to conduct cases in a way that ensures justice is done and is responsive to the particular circumstance of a case. In circumstances where the fair and impartial exercise of prosecutorial discretion is at odds with the victim’s desires, the Prosecutor should be sensitive but realistic and candid with the victim.

On January 13, 2023, this matter was addressed before Justice Renaud and the accused person entered a guilty plea. The Crown advised the judge that they had requested a Victim Impact Statement (VIS), but that, based on previous communication with the victim, it was unclear whether she wanted to provide one or not. The presiding judge made the decision to proceed without a Victim Impact Statement and sentenced the offender.

After the imposition of sentence, the Crown became aware that the victim had wanted to provide a VIS, and requested a meeting with the victim. During the meeting, the Crown apologized to the victim for the misunderstanding, and suggested that it may be possible to arrange an alternate way of ensuring that the offender was aware of the impact this offence had on the victim. ”

These past months have been an eye-opener, she says. “This wasn’t really a domestic assault case, and it should never have been looked at that way. This was an unprovoked attack by someone I was unlucky enough to be standing in front of when he snapped. I have no ties to this person, so there is no concern of future contact with him.”

“I realize now that most domestic assault victims don’t want to speak out. They don’t want other people to know and they are often worried about losing their kids,” she says. “I decided to speak out because I was really really concerned about the community. I was afraid it would happen to someone else,” she says, after learning that he was texting other women and that he was still frequenting local bars.

Financial pressures, the lack of affordable housing and people trying to help someone with a hard-luck story all serve to put people in vulnerable situations, she says.

“This was a serious assault and I feel it was treated like a very minor offence,” Maureen says.

“Be very careful who you invite into your home,” she ended.