Woman denies sexually abusing estranged grandchildren

BRANDON — A woman denied allegations of sexually abusing two of her grandchildren in Brandon’s Court of King’s Bench Tuesday before the Crown and defence lawyers delivered their closing arguments.

The grandmother, 51, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual interference, is accused of sexually abusing a girl and boy while watching TV in her bedroom between August 2019 and December 2021.

The girl is now eight years old and the boy is 11.

A publication ban protecting the children’s identities prevents their identification or that of the woman on trial.

The grandmother testified that she didn’t watch TV with the children “very often” because they were doing other activities such as crafts, making forts or having picnics. If she was in the bedroom watching TV with them, it was only “for a short period of time,” she said.

The woman said there were times when she touched her granddaughter’s genitals when she was two years old because she was changing her soiled diaper, but “it was not done inappropriately.”

She would also check her grandson’s pants, as he occasionally wore a pull-up diaper at age four because he still had accidents, the woman said.

She denied Crown attorney Reid Girard’s suggestion that she would stick her hands down the children’s pants to check if they had an accident and that she had sexually abused the kids.

The grandmother said she sold her house in August 2019 to move about two hours closer to her daughter’s family in a southwestern Manitoba rural community because her daughter was having “personal issues.”

She said it was a “big risk” to move there, given that she had a strained relationship with her daughter but she “wanted to be there to help her.”

The grandmother moved into a house about two blocks away from her daughter’s family and would babysit the children almost daily because she hadn’t secured a job yet, she said.

In October 2019, she started working as an educational assistant at her grandchildren’s elementary school, but continued to have them over for visits at her house “quite frequently.”

She said the relationship with her daughter became even more strained over the years.

The last time the children visited her home was around Christmas in December 2021, she said. Her daughter stopped speaking to her shortly after that until the accusations were made in January 2023, the woman said.

She said even though she saw her grandchildren every day at school, she didn’t initiate conversations with them, knowing it might upset her daughter.

Her grandchildren would approach her during her recess supervision on the school playground and ask why they didn’t visit her anymore, she said.

“They would run and jump into my arms and tell me how much they missed me,” she said.

In January 2023, she went to her daughter’s house to ask if the kids wanted to visit her home. She said her daughter was “screaming and yelling” and told her the children didn’t love her anymore, so she walked away.

During closing arguments, defence lawyer Anthony Dawson said the grandmother provided “honest” and “believable” testimony.

Dawson said his client’s daughter used her time on the stand Monday as an opportunity to “air out her many grievances” against her mother and that she coached her children to lie about what their grandmother allegedly did to them.

He said there were issues with the testimony of both children, including inconsistencies about where and how many times the girl said she had been touched by her grandmother in the bedroom.

“These are not just minor inconsistencies, the kind that you might expect to catch when hearing testimony from children of their age…. These are major aspects of the allegations that have changed,” he said.

Every change between the girl’s initial statement and her testimony “painted my client as even worse,” Dawson said.

Girard said it wasn’t “shocking” to hear minor inconsistencies in the children’s testimonies given how much time has passed since the alleged incidents occurred, how old they were and how old they are now.

The girl and boy were clear in their testimony that their grandmother “put her hands down their pants and touched the parts of their body that they described,” he said.

Justice Sandra Zinchuk reserved her decision until May 14.

— Brandon Sun