Six doctors told toddler Nathaniel McLellan’s mother that whatever happened to her son would have caused an immediate reaction, making him unresponsive,聽she聽told a London, Ont. court on Wednesday.
“The damage would have been done immediately,” Rose-Anne Van De Wiele replied, in response to the fourth day of cross-examination by Geoff Snow, the lawyer for babysitter Meggin Van Hoof.
Van Hoof, 46, is on trial for manslaughter in Nathaniel’s death in 2015. She has pleaded not guilty.聽
Court has heard that聽Van Hoof聽alerted Van De Wiele just before noon on Oct. 27, 2015, saying that the 15-month-old Nathaniel was unwell. Van De Wiele picked up her son and rushed him to hospital. He died days later, on Oct. 31. It was determined he had suffered a “blunt force trauma.”
In defence of his client, Snow is drilling down on the timing that day, a critical aspect of the case. The prosecution alleges that either Van Hoof caused the injury, or if she didn’t cause it, she failed to take quick action by, for example,聽calling 911. Court has yet to hear anything definitive about when the ultimately fatal injury occurred.
As court has heard, Van De Wiele dropped her son off at Van Hoof’s home at 8:30 a.m.聽in Strathroy, Ont. where Van Hoof ran an unlicensed daycare. Van De Wiele has testified her son was healthy and happy when she left him at Van Hoof’s bungalow. Van De Wiele then drove down the street to the school where she taught.
Snow introduced to the court a transcript of an interview the OPP conducted with Van De Wiele following her son’s death. In it, Van De Wiele and husband Kent McLellan are presented various scenarios by two detectives. In one scenario, the back-and-forth discussion hypothesizes that Nathaniel was hurt in a fall at Van Hoof’s home. Then Van Hoof tried to comfort him, and put him down for a nap. Court heard Van De Wiele’s response to the detectives.
“That’s complete criminal negligence,” Van De Wiele is quoted as saying about Van Hoof: “You had my baby, you didn’t call 911, you didn’t call me, you didn’t call anyone and you put him in a frickin’ crib.”
Van De Wiele agreed in court that she made that statement.
Snow suggested to Van De Wiele that she believed聽anything his client said to police (court has not yet heard Van Hoof’s statement to police) was a lie.
Van De Wiele said that was not the case, but that she was basing her belief of what happened on what doctors had told her.
She said that six doctors said her son would have experienced a rapid decline after the type of injury he was later discovered to have had. Those doctors included the Strathroy hospital ER doctor聽who treated Nathaniel that day, her family doctor, and four medical experts involved in the case.
“Each and every doctor had told me that the damage would have been done immediately,” Van De Wiele told the trial. “He would have been unresponsive, or stopped breathing even immediately. That this would have been noticeable to whomever he was (with).” She said the ER doctor told her that “this is not the kind of injuries聽that a caregiver wouldn’t notice.”
Court also heard that Van De Wiele was聽worried about聽the time she took leaving her school to pick up Nathaniel after Van Hoof called to say he was unwell. Court heard that from the time she received the call to when she arrived at hospital was 10 minutes. Van De Wiele met Van Hoof on the road and bundled Nathaniel into the car. The ER doctor treating Nathaniel came into the quiet room at the hospital and told her not to be concerned about questions like that at this critical moment.聽
“I remember him being very firm and saying, look, your son has a pulse. He’s breathing. But we don’t know if he’s going to make it,” Van De Wiele told court. “Those questions don’t matter right now,” she recalled the ER doctor saying. “I’m just trying to save his life. That’s my focus.”
Snow asked Van De Wiele questions about her ability to properly describe information that others had provided her. In one example, Snow pointed out that in a discussion with police, Van De Wiele had said a doctor told her that “Nathaniel was assaulted.” Snow pointed out to Van De Wiele that the doctor, a neurologist, actually said it was “likely an assault.”
Van De Wiele responded that she likely “flip flopped” between saying it was an “accident” or an “assault.”聽
Court has heard that in later conversations she and her husband had with doctors, she recorded their talks. This one, an earlier meeting, she did not. “I began to realize that it was a lot of information and I didn鈥檛 understand it all fully so the next meeting I did record it so I could be better.”
Snow replied saying: “In a meeting where you were number one, paying attention, and number two taking notes, and even still you mischaracterized that with which that was occurring.鈥
“Well,” Van De Wiele hesitated, “I did.”
The trial continues Thursday with Van De Wiele expected to return to the witness stand.聽
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