Senior to armed robber: 'I forgive you'

Originally posted on TJ.news on Feb. 27, 2023 — When Bernice Wilson walked into the living room of her Quispamsis home, Michael Dakin Ingersoll popped up from behind her piano wearing a black balaclava.

““Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you,” he told the 74-year-old woman.

Wilson discovered Ingersoll in her home at about 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 1, after he'd broken in the night before, court heard.

Ingersoll, 33, held his head in his hands as Crown prosecutor Chris Ryan read the facts of the case to the court on Wednesday afternoon.

Court heard that Ingersoll ordered Wilson to sit on her couch, throwing blankets over her head to obstruct her vision. Wilson offered Ingersoll breakfast, which he declined, though he did accept a cup of coffee, court heard.

Ryan said Ingersoll then duct-taped her to a chair and taped her mouth, keeping her head covered with blankets. He told her he was armed with a .22-calibre Smith and Wesson revolver.

Ingersoll stole Wilson’s purse, chequebook and credit cards, attempting to cash a fraudulent cheque and making numerous purchases and ATM withdrawals over the next five days, before he was arrested in east Saint John on Sept. 6, court heard.

When he was arrested, Saint John police found numerous loaded firearms in his vehicle, according to a police report.

In her victim impact statement, Wilson addressed Ingersoll directly, saying she’s been praying for him.

“I see you each time I enter my TV room, remembering how you startled me,” she said.

But, she added, “I forgive you in my heart, and I pray for your protection in jail.”

She added he was “considerate of her comfort” while she was confined, though she acknowledged he was planning to rob her of “things that are irreplaceable in sentiment and value.

“I told you at the time Jesus loves you, in spite of what you’re doing,” she told him.

“Thank you, Miss Wilson,” Ingersoll replied.

Judge Claude Hache said he’d been a judge for nearly 20 years and had never seen such a “forgiving” victim impact statement.

Ingersoll pleaded guilty to more than a dozen criminal charges, including armed robbery, confinement, stealing a weapon, and numerous firearms-related offenses, as well as attempting to cash a forged cheque, and stealing approximately $2,000 via Wilson’s stolen credit cards and ATM withdrawals.

He also pleaded guilty to three counts relating to an armed break and enter of a camp in Digdeguash, where he stayed for several days following the Quispamsis armed break-in.

Ingersoll had received a mental health assessment after he said he believed to be dying of cancer, despite a lack of evidence he’d been diagnosed. He ultimately chose not to proceed with using the defence of being not criminally responsible, though, and entered guilty pleas.

Ingersoll’s lawyer, Shanna Wicks, noted his mother, grandmother and aunt were present in the courtroom and were supporting him. Ingersoll blew a kiss to his family before returning to custody at the Saint John Regional Correctional Centre.

Ingersoll is scheduled to return to court on March 16 for sentencing.

-- With files from Andrew Bates

'She won't die in vain'

Originally posted on TJ.News on March 16, 2023— A photo of Hillary Hooper posing with sunflowers sat on a podium in Saint John’s courthouse for three days.

Her mother, Patricia Borthwick, said she wanted those testifying in the inquest into her daughter’s suicide death to remember her face.

“You have thousands of patients,” she said, “but I have one daughter. When you walk by her, I want you to know she lived, she had a great life, and she mattered. I want you to remember her beautiful face.”

A five-person jury confirmed Hooper, 27, died of suicide while she was hospitalized in the Saint John Regional Hospital’s psychiatric wing, after hearing testimony from a provincial coroner, numerous mental health professionals, as well as law enforcement and a Horizon Health Network executive.

Following the testimonies, a judge and coroner issued over a dozen recommendations in order to prevent deaths under similar circumstances.

Borthwick says her daughter can finally rest now that the family knows the details of Hooper’s final moments, something the family has been seeking for more than two years.

The testimonies tracked Hooper’s way through the hospital moment by moment, from arriving at the emergency room after overdosing on prescription medication on Nov. 13 to being taken off life support on Dec. 9. 

Lauren Oulton, a mental health nurse who assessed Hooper in the emergency room after her initial suicide attempt, described the woman as “unshakeable” in her resolve to end her life. Hooper was placed on 4D North, the hospital’s psychiatric unit.

On Dec. 2 during 11 p.m. hourly bed checks, nurses discovered Hooper had barricaded her room with a hospital bed. Once they finally pushed the door open and found her room was empty, they noticed a light on in the adjacent bathroom. 

When the nurses opened the door after “four or five” tries, they found Hooper, who had attempted suicide and was unresponsive but still had a pulse. 

Karen Wood, charge nurse on that night, described how they performed CPR until the hospital’s “code blue” team arrived and continued resuscitation efforts. Hooper was then moved to the hospital’s intensive care unit, where she was taken off life support a week later, dying moments after.

Borthwick said it was difficult to hear the gory details of her daughter’s final moments, but necessary.

“I needed to find out the truth,” she said, calling the testimonies “graphic, but wonderful.”

Some of the testimonies unearthed new information that hadn’t been told to the family, like that Hooper had managed to cut herself while in the emergency room before being transferred to 4D North, the psychiatric wing.

Other pieces of information contradicted what Borthwick had been told over the span of the past two years, as she begged the health network for more information about her daughter’s final days.

“But I got the real story,” Borthwick says. “Now, as a family, I feel we can move forward.”

The jury also heard Hooper was a dog lover and had a great sense of humour, with a knack for telling dirty jokes.

After hearing testimony from 16 witnesses, the jury recommended the hospital’s psychiatric unit use bedding which tears easily and wouldn’t be able to support the weight of a grown adult, along with bolting hospital beds to the floor so they can’t be moved to barricade a room.

The jury also recommended “any time a patient door is blocked, that attention be given to the room immediately” and also said Horizon Health should consider increasing overnight staffing levels on the psychiatric ward. 

The jury also recommended installing security cameras in rooms on the psychiatric ward, though the jury said they realize there are "issues" surrounding patient privacy.

The jury also recommended a “short-stay” unit be added to the hospital as a part of their psychiatric services, which Horizon Health also recommended after its own internal review.

Hooper had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which included attention-seeking behaviour, self-harm and other maladaptive coping strategies, as well as vast fluctuation in emotions and intense moods, among others.

The unit would be intended for people with borderline personality disorder and similar mental health afflictions, in order to “stabilize” people in crisis and help them with coping mechanisms for their daily lives.

Provincial coroner Emily Caissy, who presided over the inquest, also recommended the short-stay unit be implemented.

She also recommended Horizon provide information sessions for local physicians on local resources available for borderline personality disorder, and “adopt or make a continuous assessment of suicide urgency” via standardized forms in emergency departments and other clinical settings.

Caissy also recommended the Department of Justice and Public Safety support the Office of the Chief Coroner in establishing a suicide fatality review committee.

Borthwick said the jury “nailed it” with their recommendations. 

“It’s all the things that should make it impossible to do what she did again,” she said.

In an emailed statement, Renée Fournier, Horizon’s Director Addiction and Mental Health Services for the Saint John area, said the health network will be reviewing each recommendation.

Fournier testified Horizon’s internal review also recommended cutting off the tops of doors on the psychiatric ward in order to prevent suicide by hanging.

“In the wake of this particular tragedy, Horizon moved quickly to implement safety enhancements to our inpatient psychiatric unit at Horizon’s Saint John Regional Hospital. These changes, and any others resulting from these recommendations, will help mitigate the risk of similar incidents from taking place in the future,” her email said.

In an emailed statement, Geoffrey Downey, media representative for the Department of Justice and Public Safety, said the department was reviewing the recommendation to establish a suicide fatality review committee, but did not elaborate further.

Aside from the recommended changes, Borthwick also hopes legislation changes will prompt inquests automatically whenever someone dies by suicide while hospitalized.

“She won’t die in vain,” she said.

Coalition renews call for pay equity

Originally posted on TJ.News on Feb. 21, 2023 — With sustained inflation rates over seven per cent and significant jumps in New Brunswick’s minimum wage, workers and activists are calling for the province to address pay equity in women-dominated industries.

“We cannot do this work for a little bit above minimum wage,” Laurie Anderson, a worker in a Woodstock special care home and president of the New Brunswick Community Service Unions, which falls under CUPE, the province’s largest union.

‘It’s too hard and too tiring, and it’s why people leave the sector.”

Anderson works with adults with mental illnesses or disabilities, and says it’s getting harder and harder to hire and retain staff for the “physically demanding and mentally challenging” roles, which involves caring for people who can sometimes have violent behaviours.

“Raising the pay would certainly help,” she said.

According to data from the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity, caregivers in community residences are paid $18.80 per hour, but a wage that keeps pace with inflation would be nearly $10 higher.

Special care home workers currently make $16.50 per hour, and home support workers are at $17.50, but an equitable wage would be closer to $25, the coalition says.

Johanne Perron, executive director of the coalition for pay equity, acknowledged the provincial government’s 2022-23 budget included increasing wages to match the $2 increase in minimum wage.

Minimum wage in New Brunswick is set to increase again on April 1 to $14.75 per hour.

“But it’s still not progress,” she said, as inflation has outpaced wage increases.

“It’s as if there wasn’t any advancement. They’re seeing an increase in their paycheque, but it’s just keeping up with what they had before.”

A living wage in New Brunswick’s three major cities is more than $20 per hour, according to data published in October 2022 by the Saint John Human Development Council.

The coalition defines pay equity as valuing jobs in woman-dominated sectors the same as male-dominated jobs.

Jobs in the “care sector” have traditionally been undervalued and under-payed, Perron said, to the detriment of both workers and the families who rely on their services.

“We need to think about paying people fairly, based on their responsibilities, working conditions, efforts and skills required,” Perron said.

Mark Taylor, media spokesperson for the province's Women's Equity Branch, said work is being done across government to address pay equity in the public sector, though he didn't offer specifics.

The branch "recognizes the value of work done in women-led sectors," he said, and is meeting with stakeholders, including the pay equity coalition.

Simon Ouellette, media representative for CUPE, said part of the problem is the “patchwork” of dozens of public and private care providers throughout the province.

He estimates there’s about 10,000 care workers across the province, but only a fraction of them- about 500 to 600- are unionized.

High turnover rates are a barrier to organizing, he said, as “a union is only as strong as its members,” adding the “precarious nature” of the sector brings challenges to maintaining labour rights, like vacation, sick time, and other things covered by the Employment Standards Act.

“It will remain precarious, unless there is government intervention,” he said.

Faye Nowlan, vice president of the New Brunswick Community Service Union, has been working in the sector for more than 20 years. She says she hasn’t received a significant raise since 2014.

In 2021, the department of social development spent $12.4 million in wage increases for more than 10,000 workers in the care sector, including home support workers and special care home workers, Rebecca Howland, media representative for the department of social development.

She added there had been “numerous” initiatives to address recruitment of staffers in long-term care, including job fairs and international trips.

But Nowlan says increased wages would be the best bet to retain the sector’s workers, noting the provincial government’s $777 million budgetary surplus at the end of 2022.

Nowlan works at a youth transition home in Miramichi, working with troubled teens who, in some cases, have nowhere else to stay.

“It’s really, really challenging,” she said, “there are a lot of youth with mental health issues from abuse when they were small.”

Many of the youth Nowlan works with go to school where they’re aided by educational assistants, which were a part of the thousands of workers who went on province-wide strike in fall 2021.

Education assistants now make about $12 or $13 more than workers in the youth transition home, and “they well deserve it,” she said, “but we deal with the same type of youth.”

Nowlan says she stays in the sector despite the challenging working conditions, 12-hour shifts and low wages because she feels like she can make a difference.

“There are success cases,” she said, “It gets frustrating, but then it’s like, ‘Oh my god, we got this kid through school, he’s in college now.’”