VICTIMS' VOICES
An Independent, Non-Profit Newsletter
Devoted to attaining justice for victims
Founded in September 2000 by
Phyllis Carter of Montreal
Co-Founder of The NDG Splinters
January, 2008
I started Victims' Voices in 2000 because the Justice System in Montreal is so exclusive that ordinary people are often unable to enter at all. The first barrier is the Police Station where the victim is unable to have their report accepted. If the victim is able to persuade the Montreal Police to file a report, he or she will likely receive a telephone call within a few weeks announcing that the case is unworthy to be considered. I cannot tell you about the courts and the judges because, although I have been fighting for justice since I was attacked and robbed in Montreal on October 7, 1996 with the help of a Montreal Police officer, I have been unable to get my case as far as criminal court.
I invite other victims of the Injustice System to tell me their stories - which they do - but when I ask them to write their story and sign it so that I can publish it, they never do. Their reason for not accepting help is almost always "What's the use? We can't win anyway." Meanwhile, those who have the power to do justice, do nothing, confident that the victims will just fade away.
But I will never give up. So here I am eleven years after the crimes against my family began, still fighting for justice with renewed determination. For the few who have not heard or read about my struggle for justice, this will be a review of the highlights of the crimes and the intransigence, incompetence and corruption in Quebec's Injustice System.
It started in October 1996, when I was attacked and robbed in my parents' home where I had been living for two years while recovering from breast cancer. Suddenly at the beginning of October, my teenage niece Dawn and her boyfriend Alex moved in with us. Within a week of Dawn's arrival - on October 7, my mother suddenly attacked me without any apparent reason and without any warning. In shock, I called 911 for help to escape the violence.
One of the two officers who responded to my distress call 'helped' me out the door without as much as a coat. In front of my assailant, the officer told me that I must never return. This police officer's unilateral decision to evict me, forbidding me to return home, gave all my most precious belongings, as well as my aged parents' lives and property into the hands of my teenage niece.
This action was taken without any investigation. There was no legal procedure. No hearing. No court procedure. No trial. No judgment. No background to support such an action. No justification. The officer just decided to do it. And then - he did not file a report.
Widowed, unemployed and fighting cancer, the police abandoned me in the street alone, cold, homeless and destitute. My entire life was locked up behind me, in Dawn's hands. I pleaded with the police at the local police station to file a report, to go to the house and see for themselves. They refused again and again, saying, "Your mother ask you to be patient and everything will be return to you." For six months, the Montreal Police refused repeatedly to file a report. At 60, I had to start life again - from scratch.
Quebec's Police Ethics Commissioner wrote to me: "The police have large powers and vast Authority .... The case is definitively closed". Large powers - to help criminals? Vast authority - to rob widows ?
But you could get a consultation with a lawyer for $35.00 to $50.00. The Bar Association gives you the name of a lawyer who tells you that your case is not important enough for him to waste his time. Your money has already slipped into his right-hand pants pocket.
I asked my member of the Quebec National Assembly, for help. He told me that the Police Ethics Commissioner has the last word and that's that - unless you have a lawyer. He was unable to find a lawyer who would help me.
I appealed to Quebec Premier Jean Charest. He wrote to say that the theft of all my jewellery and the fruit of my life's work and the personal treasures my husband left to me, is "a civil matter of an unfortunate nature." Grand larceny is a civil matter ?
The family was torn apart by Dawn's crimes. My father died in 2000 without knowing the truth about what happened. In April 2004: I went to see the police again because Dawn's mother, my sister Debbie, moved our mother out of our family home and no one knew where she was until June, 2007.
Debbie obtained power of attorney from both my parents. Every other member of the family, the CLSC social services, fire protection services and even police detectives, were barred from my parents' home thereafter. The home of our youth looked like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, doors and windows overgrown with dead vines. So I went to the police station to file a missing person report.
To acquaint the young officer with the background of the case, I showed him pictures of the dinner ring my grandmother gave me and my designer ring - which were among the many things Dawn stole. The officer asked if I have proof that I own those rings.
Yes, in March, 1997, when Dawn returned my clothes and files, but not my valuables, I gave the police copies of the certificate, the appraisal, insurance papers, receipts and photos, and the note from my grandmother. (I have the originals of all the documents and there are many copies.) Then the police finally agreed to write a report of the theft.
The officer said, "The papers prove these (rings) are yours: That's theft." "Yes," I said, "That's what I've been telling the police all these years." The officer advised me to go to Montreal Police Archives and ask for copies of the police reports. "BUT TO DO THAT, YOU HAVE TO HAVE A LAWYER." I'm a pensioner. I can't afford a lawyer. But I am not eligible for legal aid.
The officer could not file a missing person report - because Debbie told him that she knew where mother was. To see your mother or to get information about where or how she is, you have to file a civil suit. "BUT YOU WILL NEED A LAWYER." Still, that would take months! Can't the police check on my mother now ? Sorry.
To sue Dawn for the theft, "You must file a CIVIL suit. BUT YOU NEED A LAWYER." But surely it's a CRIME to steal jewellery and money ! In any case, I don't want compensation. I want only what is mine. The officer is really sorry.
Debbie had my parents' powers of attorney. In the end, Dawn McSweeney and her entourage stole everything of value that belonged to me and everything that belonged to my parents and my siblings.
We learned that our mother died in June, 2007. She was buried on June 21, after being kept in total seclusion by Debbie and her associates for ten years. On June 26, I started receiving hate mail. I reported that to the police the same day. On June 27, two police officers came to my door with a court order to have me committed for a mental evaluation. The Suburban newspaper carried that part of the story on September 5 and September 12, 2007. I was released from the hospital unconditionally on June 29, 2007. Weeks later, I found out why a stranger named Kenneth Prud'homme wanted me silenced:
My accuser, the mise en cause who applied for the court order was a stranger named Kenneth Gregoire Prud'homme who I do not know and with whom I have never spoken. This same Kenneth Gregoire Prud'homme is named as the liquidator of a will in my mother's name made when she was 92 years old, handicapped mentally and physically and totally under the control of my sister, Debbie, her daughter, Dawn, and this stranger, Kenneth Prud'homme. All my parents' children were included in the wills they had made. Only Debbie, Dawn and Prud'homme are included in this bizarre new will of 2005.
In November, 2007, my Member of the Quebec National Assembly wrote an appeal to the Conseil de la Magistrature against the judge who condemned me in his court order in less than four minutes without ever seeing me or speaking to me and without any medical evidence, but based solely on the bizarre accusations made by a man I do not know. The Conseil de la Magistrature of Quebec replied that it is not in their jurisdiction to act.
I am now 71 years old. I have been fighting for justice alone for eleven years. I will never give up. I want to make it very clear that I will not accept money or "compensation" from anyone. I want my parents' true wills to be reinstated. I do not want anything from my parents' estate for myself. I want only what was stolen from me. And I want the thieves tried in criminal court.
I am fighting for that rare and elusive treasure - JUSTICE - and I will not settle for anything less.
Phyllis Carter
