Four siblings who fled family home had ‘a lot of trauma’: Witness

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After fleeing their family home, four siblings needed safe places to land and they found them with members of their faith.

The four children of a couple, on trial for shocking allegations of physical, mental and sexual abuse, shared with their hosts some of what led them to landing on their doorsteps.

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“I mostly blocked out most of it,” said a woman who testified at the Superior Court jury trial. “Because it was something that hurt my soul, just something that parents don’t do to their children.”

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The parents, a man aged 57 and a woman aged 54 have been on trial for more than a month. They pleaded not guilty to 47 charges including incest, forcible confinement, assaults, sexual assault, sexual interference and failing to provide the necessaries of life between 2003 and 2020.

The identities of the children are protected by a court-ordered publication ban.

Since the trial began, the Superior Court jury has heard from four of their children, who have described in detail various forms of punishment that were harsh, some of it sadistic. To the outside world, they seemed like a normal, middle class, religious family living in the suburbs, but the children have said they were routinely beaten, tied up and sexually assaulted for all manner of perceived transgressions.

The jury heard from two women Monday, both of whom said they met members of the family through their church. In the spring of 2020, they ended up taking in the children after they fled their father in March 2020.

Their mother had been out of the home for several months, after the Children’s Aid Society had started an investigation into what was happening.

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The night in March 2020 when the four saw a chance to leave, they ended up in another city where they had lived previously and where they knew friends they had met through the church.

“They said they left the house in a hurry,” the witness said, and they revealed that their father had “pushed them” and asked that the police not be called.

But they also said there were a lot of things happening their friends didn’t know about. The witness said she bedded the four siblings down on couches in her basement.

The siblings also disclosed some physical and sexual abuse.

One of the siblings was still working in London and commuting. The decision was made after two weeks to seek shelter with another church family.

The second witness at the trial had the siblings stay with their family for three months, just as the pandemic started.

“They were just a little nervous and maybe a little frightened because they didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said.

She said they showed up with very little. None of them had pajamas or other belongings.

She noticed unusual behaviors. They never did they stand on the staircase if another person was standing there. They ate large portions of food, and they insisted on clearing the plate of the adult male of the household because they always had to clear their father’s plate.

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The siblings wanted locks on the bedroom doors, which were denied, and cameras in their rooms, which were permitted.

The witness said she had to tell them they didn’t have to give any money to their father.

Their father texted and called – once when a child services worker was there – wanting to know when he would be given custody of the children, mostly for financial reasons.

A few weeks into their stay, they were given permission to return to the house to retrieve belongings. The witness said they filled up a couple of cars and a van. She added she saw none of their pets, but there was noticeable feces and urine in the house.

The children feared their parents would show up, but the witness said she assured them she would call the police if they did.

She took one of the siblings to urgent care, because she was “a mess, crying, upset.” She noticed a bruise on another sibling.

While she said she wanted to provide comfort to the siblings, she also wanted to protect her family from what they were going through.

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“They had a lot of trauma and my goal was to make sure my family didn’t have trauma from what they had trauma from,” she said.

She said she became the siblings’ sounding board. She stayed up late, made sure everyone was tucked in at night and was the first one up in the morning.

“I just wanted to make sure everyone was safe,” she said.

The jury also heard from London police Det. Steve Simone of the sexual assault and child abuse unit, who described arresting ella’s mother at her apartment in November 2021.

The accused answered her door, then began to retreat inside, insisting she wanted to call her lawyer. She got on her phone and called.

Simone said he noticed she was cooking and there was food on the stove and items in the sink. I have noticed a white cellphone on a table.

They left the apartment and Simone said he locked the door and retained the key. As part of the investigation, he checked for any storage units in her name and found none of her.

She remained in custody when, with a search warrant to seize journals and books, he returned to the apartment. The siblings said during their testimony their mother wrote journals.

Simone said when he went into the apartment, the bathroom and kitchen were cleaned up and the white cellphone was gone.

He was able to find a few journals in one of the many totes.

The trial continues on Tuesday.

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