The Crown has stayed a charge of child abduction against a Saanich mother who spent seven years on the run from a Canadian court order.
The May 2016 charges against Lauren Ann Etchells, 37, were stayed on June 14 after the Crown concluded that the charge assessment standard was no longer met, Dan McLaughlin, communications counsel for the B.C. Prosecution Service, said in an email Friday.
That means the Crown decided a conviction was unlikely or a prosecution was no longer in the public interest.
Etchells married Tasha Brown in August 2012 and gave birth to their daughter, Kaydance, in September 2014 using a sperm donor. The couple separated in July 2015. Etchells was given full custody, but Brown was working to get equal custody.
On May 6, 2016, Etchells fled the country with Kaydance in violation of a court order. She was with her new partner, Marco van der Merwe, and their infant son. She evaded capture for three years, despite Interpol issuing a red notice.
Police believe Etchells travelled to England, France, the Netherlands, the Middle East and possibly Spain and Portugal. She was finally caught after arriving in Jersey with her parents in July 2019 in an inflatable dingy.
According to The Guardian, Etchells was convicted after a four-day trial of two charges of exposing a child to risk of harm.
Her parents were convicted of two charges of aiding and abetting exposing a child to risk of harm.
She and her parents were each sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for 12 months, and fined 500 pounds. They were also ordered to pay costs of 1,600 pounds between them, The Guardian reported.
The prosecutor told the court they claimed to have gone to Jersey from France “with the intention of having lunch.”
The assistant magistrate found they were using Jersey to avoid compliance with the Canadian court order. He acknowledged that efforts had been taken to reduce the risk of harm to the children and that no harm was sustained.
But he also found the water around Jersey can be “very dangerous” and both children were exposed to a risk of harm, The Guardian reported.
Sarah Dale, the lawyer representing Etchells, told the court the children are the most important thing in Etchells’ life and whatever her motive for making the crossing, she was adamant that she would not do anything that put her children at risk.
Brown flew to Jersey to attend the court case and was distressed to find that Kaydance, then five, did not remember her.
Before the charges were stayed, it was already decided that Etchells would not be extradited to Canada. The federal Department of Justice confirmed Friday that she was discharged from the extradition proceedings in the United Kingdom on May 17.
“This was on the basis that the United Kingdom had determined none of the offences in Canada amounted to offences under English law. In order for an individual to be extradited, the offence for which extradition is sought must be criminal in both countries. This is known as dual criminality. In the case of Ms. Etchells, dual criminality was not met.”
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