Goudge Inquiry: Why Didn't The Prosecutors Sound The Alarm On Dr. Smith? Another Lost Opportunity;

"AND WHAT ABOUT YOU MS. REGIMBAL?," WARDLE ASKED. "YOU GO ON TO YOUR NEXT CASE, DO YOU LEAVE THE AMBER DECISION AND THAT'S REALLY ALL YOU HAVE TO DO AT THIS POINT? YOU STEP OUT OF THE -- OF THE SCENE, SO TO SPEAK?"

LAWYER PETER WARDLE TO PROSECUTOR TERRI REGIMBAL;

One of the troubling questions that has been raised at the Goudge inquiry is why prosecutors who personally became aware of Dr. Smith's serious deficiencies during trials did not sound the alarm to their colleagues.

Lawyer Peter Wardle, who represents several families affected by Dr. Smith at the Inquiry , put this question directly to Terri Regimbal, the Crown Attorney who prosecuted the 12-year-old baby-sitter for Manslaughter in the Timmins case.

"And what about you Ms. Regimbal?," Wardle asked. "You go on to your next case, do you leave the Amber decision and that's really all you have to do at this point? You step out of the -- of the scene, so to speak?"

Regimbal responded that she sent a copy of Judge Patrick Dunn's searing critique of Dr Smith's evidence to the hospital and attended a meeting of the hospital's Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) team that had been called to discuss the case.

"I had taken the time -- it's not a short jaunt from Timmins to Toronto," she told Commissioner Steven Goudge. "I'd taken the time to come to Toronto for this meeting to assist them in assessing it and to try to improve the process."

"Apart from that, that was the end of my obligation as I saw it...but that was pretty well all I did."

(See previous posting: Damage control and lost opportunity: The Hospital For Sick Children Suspected Child Abuse And Neglect


(In addition to deflecting the responsibility to deal with Dr. Smith to the hospital, as his employer, Regimbal, also passed the buck to the the babysitter's defence lawyer and to unnamed criminal lawyers.

"I assumed that he (the defence lawyer) would circulate it (Dunn's decision) with friends," and, "I assumed that the criminal lawyers have their network of communication," she told the Inquiry.")

Wardle's probing examination of Regimbal as to whether she should have done more in the circumstances is worth repeating.

MR. PETER WARDLE: But you would have realized, presumably, that Dr. Smith would also, just like you, he'd go onto his next case, right?

MS. TERRI REGIMBAL: Yes.

MR. PETER WARDLE: And you knew he was running this Unit, did you know that, at the Hospital for Sick Children?

MS. TERRI REGIMBAL: I don't know.

MR. PETER WARDLE: All right. You knew he was an expert on Shaken Baby Syndrome.

MS. TERRI REGIMBAL: Certainly.

MR. PETER WARDLE: You knew he would be called by the Crown in the next case that came along.

MS. TERRI REGIMBAL: Presumably.

MR. PETER WARDLE: And did you think you had any obligation to raise any alarm bells about him?

MS. TERRI REGIMBAL: No, I don't think I felt I had an obligation at that point.

I mean, I could assume safely that this reasonable professional man would read this judgment over, that he may take it to heart, and that he may pull up his socks on some of the areas ...

"I suppose had I heard an alarm, I would have possibly written a colleague and said, Now wait a minute, you better ha -- make sure you have this judgment, but I had no reason in January of 1992 -- sixteen (16) years ago -- to think that he wouldn't take this to heart.

There had been, as far as I was aware, no criticisms of him up to this point.

He seemed to be someone who, on the exterior, was -- was willing to learn from this.

He seemed like a reasonable individual that could take criticism."

In fairness to Ms. Regimbal, in January, 1992, Dr. Charles Smith was an icon who was lavished with praise by both his Colleagues at the Hospital for Sick Children's Hospital, and by the top ranks of the Chief Coroner's office.

In her own words to the Inquiry:

MS: TERRI REGIMBAL: "And up to that point, I hadn't really heard any criticisms of Charles Smith. All I'd heard, even from the Deputy Chief Coroner of the Province, was this man's the foremost Canadian expert in pediatric pathology. And I noticed that the doctors even deferred to him, someone even like a ju -- Dr. Jeff Barker --

MR. PETER WARDLE: Mm-hm.

MS. TERRI REGIMBAL: -- who I had so much respect for because he was so experienced and so well respected internationally. He -- it was obvious he
deferred to and had respect to Charle -- for Dr. Charles Smith.

Regimbal wasn't the only prosecutor was not to buy into the myth of Dr. Charles Randal Smith's greatness.

In response to Commissioner Goudge's question as to whether he had a sense of Smith's reputation as a forensic pediatric pathologist during the prosecution of Brenda Waudby in the Jenna case, Crown Attorney Brian Gilkinson, replied:

"(Well), Dr. Smith was accepted to be, I don't know whether you call it the cream of the crop, but he was very, very highly thought of ...and I had no reason to think that Dr. Smith wasn't competent..."

At one point in her testimony, Regimbal suggested that she was unaware of any complaints about Smith from her colleagues.

Could that have been because none of them, like her, were speaking up?

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;