This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
Canada: 
Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…
USA: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…
In a move towards its end, the lawyers of all the parties involved in the Ontario coroner’s inquest into the death of Moncton teenager Ashley Smith are expected to present their submissions to the jury this week. The inquest has heard that Smith died in her cell at the Grand Valley Women’s Institute in Kitchener, Ont., after tying a ligature around her neck while prison guards deliberately watched her doing so. The inquest was told that the guards were acting on orders not to intervene unless 19-year-old Smith stopped breathing.
Lawyer representing Smith’s family, Julian Roy, mentioned in his final remarks that everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for the teen while she was in the custody of the Correctional Service of Canada. Roy stated that “we have heard from all of the guards and managers in the institution so we have heard their perspectives about what went wrong and most of the witnesses have been quite candid with the court in my view.” It was added that “we have gone up the chain to regional headquarters and to national headquarters all the way up to the most senior official with Corrections Canada Commissioner Don Head, so there has been no stone left unturned.”
Pointing out that the coroner’s jury is not tasked to assign blame for Smith’s death but make recommendations for change, he alleged “is there a silver bullet? Is there a magic solution to this problem of how we care for people who suffer from mental illness in custody?” Roy elucidated that “I’m not sure about that but there’s certainly a lot of room for improvement in the short term and some potentially bigger solutions in the medium and long term.”
Be the first to comment