12 days in holding cell
Series of court adjournments, lack of facility in Yellowknife leads to 19-year-old woman's extended stay in 24-hour lockdown
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
After learning a 19-year-old woman spent 12 consecutive days in a barren RCMP cell under 24-hour lockdown, a territorial court judge ordered her immediately sent to the women's jail in Fort Smith.
A territorial court judge ordered 19-year-old Tamara Simpson - who spent 12 consecutive days in RCMP cells - be taken immediately to the woman's jail in Fort Smith to await sentencing. - Evan Kiyoshi French/NNSL photo |
Judge Robert Gorin told court Friday the RCMP detachment isn't suitable for holding prisoners more than a couple days.
"The cells at RCMP are meant to hold people overnight," said Gorin. "We have a women's facility in Fort Smith and it's not being used."
Tamara Simpson pleaded guilty to trafficking after selling a gram of cocaine to members of a federal RCMP investigations unit last summer. She was taken into custody Feb. 29 and remained in RCMP cells until Friday when Judge Gorin ordered her transfer.
It's up to the courts to decide where a person in custody will be remanded, said RCMP spokesperson Const. Elenore Sturko, who confirmed by e-mail the woman was held at the detachment.
"Unfortunately there is no other facility which is used to house female prisoners in Yellowknife at this time," she stated.
According to Crown prosecutor Brendan Green, a series of short adjournments kept Simpson behind bars at the RCMP detachment.
Whereas men awaiting court appearances in Yellowknife do so at the North Slave Correctional Centre where they have access to the outdoors, television and visitors, women must either be sent to Fort Smith, or wait at the detachment. Lights are kept on 24-hours a day at RCMP cells, no visitors aside from lawyers are permitted and no phone calls aside from lawyers allowed. The concrete room has no window and no pillow.
Simpson first went before a justice of the peace Tuesday, March 1, who set a bail hearing for March 3.
That hearing was adjourned to the next day, then adjourned again to the following Monday, March 7. She was denied bail that day. Green couldn't say why she was denied. The Crown sought to have the sentencing hearing take place March 9 but the defence opted for Friday, March 11. Simpson remained at RCMP cells until that time. Because Judge Gorin needed more time to consider his sentence, that is now set for Friday.
Simpson's lawyer Bonnie Gembey could have applied to have her client be sentenced by video conference from Fort Smith, but did not, according to Lydia Bardak, executive director of the John Howard Society in Yellowknife, who observed Simpson's appearances last week. Gembey declined to comment.
Bardak said it's "unacceptable" that Simpson spent so much time in the restrictive cells.
"I specifically asked in a whispering voice to Crown and defence, 'Why not have her go to Fort Smith now and either her sentencing can happen in Fort Smith or she can do it by video?'"
She says the cells are no place to hold anybody for more than a night or two.
"If somebody was coming from Fort Good Hope, through Yellowknife to Fort Smith and couldn't do it all in one day of flying, they would be housed in those cells overnight," she said.
"There's a raised platform with those plastic mattresses on it and possibly a blanket."
Unlike in jail, prisoners in the detachment cells are locked down all day.
"It's heavy metal doors clanging against concrete walls. The lights remain on all the time.
There are no windows, no visitors, no music, no television, no books, and a microwavable dinner. There's nothing for any kind of distraction or stimulation."
Last May, an 18-year-old woman spent five days in RCMP cells, which outraged her father and caused both Bardak and Yellowknife lawyer Paul Falvo to point out an inequity between the sexes awaiting court appearances. At the time, Sturko said cells have water, a toilet, a blanket and a mattress.
Prisoners are provided with reading material when it is safe to do so, she had said, adding those who have been in cells for two days and are anticipated to stay longer have the opportunity to shower.
Department of Justice spokesperson Sue Glowach said she wasn't aware Simpson spent 12 days in RCMP cells but said she can't discuss particulars of Simpson's case anyway, because department policy doesn't allow it.
A 21-year-old woman spent 17 days in RCMP cells between Inuvik and Yellowknife while awaiting court appearances in 2008.
Glowach told Yellowknifer last year staff tries to ensure female prisoners are brought to the Fort Smith facility as soon as possible.
"Today, we ensure female offenders are brought forward as soon as practicable to appear in court and (be) transported to Fort Smith on a timely basis," Glowach wrote after the incident with the 28-year-old in 2015.
Earlier this week, Glowach explained that the department tries to avoid flying female prisoners when court dates are close together.
"If they were appearing (again) within a day or so of their court date, they wouldn't pay to fly them down to Fort Smith and then fly them back the next day," she said.
"That doesn't make sense."
Glowach said the biggest problem is there is nowhere else in the city which can hold female prisoners. Holding women at the North Slave Correctional Centre would require enormous renovations and capital investment, she said.
