Witness Protection

A police officer was just at my door serving me with a subpoena to appear in court in mid-January 2011. I gather that Crown Counsel feels I am a witness "likely to give material evidence for the prosecution" related to an August 2005 break & enter and uttering threats offence. Yes, the offence was committed 5 years ago, and didn't directly involve me. But now I am the only person who can speak for the person who was involved - my mother.

I have a lot of problems with this situation, not the least of which is that I will be in Mexico for most of this winter. The airline reservations are made and the tickets are paid for. I'll be happy to show them to the Crown Prosecutor's office whenever they call me back. I phoned them as soon as I got the subpoena to tell them I am not in the country during the projected trial date; they are to get back to me.

This all takes me back to five years ago. I had just returned from a fantastic 3 day seminar in Seattle given by Lou Tice and The Pacific Institute (ground breaking leaders in human and organizational development in alignment with positive psychology philosophy). It was a great event; I met people from all over the world, and formed a friendship that would shortly take me to do leadership coaching work in the South Pacific.

It was 8:00 a.m. on a Monday morning. John had gone to work and I was getting ready for a full day of coaching clients, listening to my Lou Tice motivational CDs. Life was good. Then the phone rang. It was the police informing me that my mother's condo had been broken into in the wee hours of the morning and she had been physically assaulted. She was at the police station and they needed me to come get her and tend to the situation.

I quickly called all my clients scheduled for the day and cancelled their appointments. I admit I was wincing at the fact my earnings for the day would now be zero - the hazards of self-employment and being the only kid in town when your widowed mom has a crisis. This wasn't her fault, and I wanted to support her in the situation, but losing a day's pay hurt - especially the fact she was never able to acknowledge I ran my own business and didn't have paid leave of any sort.

Thankfully things like this only happened about once a year - usually it was health-related, like the times she fell and broke bones. Always on a week day, first thing in the morning, I'd get the emergency call and have to start cancelling my clients. I never said anything to her about my lost income except for one time. She was in the ER bed but nattering on and on about the fact I had paid for parking in the hospital lot and thought I should have saved the $4.00 and parked on a neighbouring side street. When she magnanimously announced she'd reimburse me for the parking, I could not help myself and told her the $4.00 was nothing compared to the hundreds of dollars of lost income from cancelled client appointments that day. She clammed right up; even the $4.00 was off the table! But, really, money was just a hot button indicator of much deeper issues. And, in these crisis situations, money was just an irritant - my main focus was always on helping my mother with whatever had happened. Broken bones and break-ins are no small matter.

I arrived at the police station and got the whole story of what had transpired. An obviously drug-addicted fellow had climbed up and gotten into my mother's 3rd floor condo through a window that opened onto her balcony. She'd woken up and seen a flashlight beam roving around her living room and got up to investigate. She confronted the burglar, they tussled and he slammed her down on the floor, sat on her chest and restrained her hands. He eventually let her sit up and she watched while he ransacked her home and purse, making off with some money. In their tussle, his watch had come off and been left at the scene. She'd called the police and they had attended and taken her to the station to give her statement.

I took her home with me and she stayed with us for a few days until she felt safe enough to go home. In the meantime, my husband beefed up all the security and locks around her condo doors and windows so this could not happen again.

Just a few days later, there was a report in the news of a similar incident right in my mother's neighbourhood. A man had broken into an elderly woman's apartment while she slept. She'd woken up and he'd kept her hostage while he ransacked her place (this kind woman actually cooked him breakfast!). Odd noises coming from her unit alerted neighbours who phoned the police and the burglar was arrested leaving the woman's apartment. A slam dunk case of being caught red-handed that somehow did not get immediately linked to my mother's break-in.

I was recently contacted by the police who sheepishly admitted it had taken all this time (almost 5 years!) to test the DNA from the burglar's watch left at my mother's condo and to identify the man now charged with the crime (yes, it's the same guy who was arrested and charged with the break in at the other woman's home). They are looking at proceeding with the case, but the main problem now is my mother died in January 2010, so they no longer have their victim/eye witness.

I've been trying to help and get my mom some posthumous justice. I have given some written statements in answer to questions posed to me by the Crown Counsel and I guess the information I provided was substantive enough that they'd like me in court as a witness. But I can't tell them anything more than what I've already submitted to them - that my mother was an active senior, living independently who had a full life with many elderly female friends whom she'd known her whole life. She was cautious and security conscious and did nothing to bring this on herself. She relied on me and my husband and was not inclined to deal with strangers. No one but family and close friends were ever invited into her home. She'd been very upset by the break-in and wanted the fellow arrested and brought to justice. She would be testifying if she were still alive.

So, once again (even after death), it feels like one of my mother's crises is interfering with my life and plans. She's gone and won't get any satisfaction or increased sense of security from sending this guy away. I don't believe that my testimony would be pivotal to a conviction. They have his DNA found at the scene, my mother's statements from 2005, and he's already been convicted of an identical crime - what more do they need?

I'll tell you what is needed - the justice system needs to do its job. I will be in Mexico.

Todo bien. (It's all good.)