Ashley Smith's family demands accountability after damning report

Wed Mar 4, 2009 11:24 AM

By The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - The mother of a young woman who committed suicide while her prison guards refused to intervene is demanding the officers who watched her die - and the "faceless bureaucrats" whose orders they followed - be held accountable for her death.

A tearful Coralee Smith held a news conference today to demand the federal government allow the correctional investigator to finish what he started and name those responsible for her daughter Ashley's death.

Criminal charges against four correctional officers were withdrawn in December.

Now Smith's mother and her lawyer have written Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan telling him there is no longer any excuse to withhold blame in the case.

The 19-year-old Moncton, N.B., native strangled herself at Grand Valley Institution for Women in October 2007 while seven guards stood back because they had been instructed not to intervene if she was still breathing.

Correctional investigator Howard Sapers reported Tuesday that Smith did not receive the care, treatment and protection she required.

Sapers said the incident continued a "disturbing and well-documented pattern of deaths in custody."

A "heartbroken" Coralee Smith says she feels her daughter died because "no one in Canada really cared."

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