Elva Bottineau, convicted of starving, neglecting and eventually killing her five-year-old grandson, Jeffrey Baldwin, was scolded by an Ontario Superior Court judge yesterday after she whispered an "unflattering" remark to the little boy's paternal grandmother.
After Susan Dimitriadis read a victim-impact statement from the witness box at yesterday's sentencing hearing -- a statement that described how her grandson's death overwhelmed her with pain -- she passed Ms. Bottineau as she returned to her seat.
As Ms. Dimitriadis glanced at her grandson's killer, Ms. Bottineau muttered "fucking bitch," Ms. Dimitriadis told reporters.
Crown attorney Bev Richards alerted Mr. Justice David Watt, which prompted a blunt order.
"Ms. Bottineau?" he asked.
"Yes, your Honour?" she replied.
"Shut your mouth," Judge Watt said.
Ms. Bottineau's insult underscored the argument put forward for most of the morning by Crown prosecutors -- that she and her co-defendant, husband Norman Kidman, are callous and accept no responsibility for what they did to Jeffrey.
The couple have been sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder, but won't know when they'll be eligible for parole until Judge Watt renders his decision on May 30.
But yesterday, Ms. Richards reminded the judge of all the times the couple, who were handed Jeffrey and his little sister by the Catholic Children's Aid Society, tried to skirt blame for his death.
She quoted Mr. Kidman's interviews with police, when he cited Jeffrey's bad behaviour as the reason for the state of the boy's decrepit bedroom.
In those interviews, he also described Jeffrey as a "good eater," even though when the boy died in 2002 he weighed 21 pounds -- less than half the normal weight for a child his age.
Ms. Richards also attacked Ms. Bottineau's past explanations for the boy's malnourishment -- that Jeffrey's sister swiped food from him at the dinner table.
"I submit My Lord, that Mr. Kidman and Ms. Bottineau are completely bankrupt of morality," she said, recommending no parole for 25 years.
However, Ms. Bottineau's lawyer, Nick Xynnis, said the court should not seek retribution against his client, who was an abused child and suffers from mental and personality disorders.
He recommended a sentence of 12 to 14 years, and asked the judge to look at the "wider context of a woman who was wholly unqualified to raise children but was entrusted to do so by the Catholic Children's Aid Society, and as the years progressed, was even encouraged to do so."
Bob Richardson, Mr. Kidman's lawyer, didn't suggest a specific time frame for his client to be paroled. Rather, he pointed out that the average time span is around 15 years, and that Mr. Kidman should be eligible for parole earlier than Ms. Bottineau because he was less culpable in Jeffrey's death.
Greg McArthur