Woman convicted of hiding dead babies to seek bail again

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This article was published 17/04/2018 (2200 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg woman convicted of hiding six dead babies in a storage locker plans to make a second attempt to be released from prison pending her appeal, her defence lawyer says.

Lawyer Greg Brodsky said Wednesday his client, 43-year-old Andrea Giesbrecht, will apply for bail again once she can find a place to live that would allow her to be supervised in the community. Giesbrecht is serving an 81/2-year prison sentence after she was convicted last year on six counts of concealing a child’s body. She asked to be released on bail while she appeals her conviction and sentence. In a decision Friday, an appeal court judge denied her bail because she didn’t have a supervisory placement where she could live if she were released.

Court of Appeal Justice Michel A. Monnin said he would have granted bail if an organization such as the Elizabeth Fry Society was able to supervise Giesbrecht. The organization had supervised Giesbrecht’s bail during her trial, but can’t accept federally sentenced prisoners into its program. Monnin said in his decision there were no open spots available in the organization’s bail program.

Reached by the Free Press on Wednesday, Brodsky said Giesbrecht should not be automatically considered ineligible for a bail placement while her appeal is pending.

“She’s back to the starting line. They shouldn’t take the position that she’s a federally sentenced prisoner, because she’s not — there’s an appeal underway. After the appeal, if it’s not allowed, then she’d be a federally sentenced prisoner, but while she’s awaiting the argument on appeal, she’s not,” he said.

A representative from the Elizabeth Fry Society of Manitoba could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Brodsky initially put forward a bail plan that involved Giesbrecht living at home, but Monnin decided not to allow that.

“I would have been prepared to grant judicial interim release to the accused, but only to reside in a controlled setting, such as the Society offered. That not being a possibility at this point in time, I am not prepared to grant the application as presently advanced. If a different release plan was proposed in the future, I would then possibly be prepared to consider the accused a candidate for release,” the judge said in his written decision.

 

Monnin made it clear he didn’t think Giesbrecht would pose a risk to public safety if she were released on bail. In a March 28 hearing, Crown attorney Jennifer Mann had argued against Giesbrecht’s release, saying it could threaten public confidence in the administration of justice.

Monnin said in his decision he was “well aware that this case has captivated the attention of the public,” but was still prepared to release Giesbrecht if she had a suitable bail plan.

Brodsky has raised 42 grounds of appeal on Giesbrecht’s behalf, including that she did not dispose of the “products of conception” in a way that violates the Criminal Code, that the trial judge should not have ruled the babies were likely to be born alive despite any evidence of a live birth, and that the sentence imposed was harsh and excessive.

“Although I have a healthy skepticism in respect to some of the grounds being advanced, as it is a rare occurrence, in my view, where there are 42 meritorious grounds to advance in an appeal, I am nevertheless satisfied that, on the whole, the accused’s appeal is not frivolous,” Monnin wrote in his decision.

Giesbrecht was convicted after a lengthy, high-profile provincial court trial that followed the October 2014 discovery of dead infants’ remains in a McPhillips Street storage unit.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay