PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "During Van De Wiele’s cross-examination, Snow has suggested that her goal was to have his client, Van Hoof, charged. In one email raised previously, Van De Wiele suggested to a senior detective that police dig into Van Hoof’s cellphone “pings” to track her location on the day Nathaniel became unwell. Van De Wiele, who police initially considered a suspect, has told court that her only goal was to find out what happened to her son."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: Wednesday, court was shown notes of a police meeting more than a year after Nathaniel died in which Amlin briefed other officers involved in the case on his recent contacts with Van De Wiele. In the note, Amlin reports to fellow officers that Van De Wiele “questions why Meggin Van Hoof has not been charged.” Amlin agreed with Snow that Van De Wiele said that to him. He testified that Van De Wiele frequently reached out to him and described an “excessive amount of emails” sent to him by Van De Wiele about her son’s case.At one point, Amlin, assigned as the family’s victim liaison officer, secretly recorded a meeting with Nathaniel’s mother, telling court he wanted to avoid “confusion” over what was said at the meeting."
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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: At one point, Amlin, assigned as the family’s victim liaison officer, secretly recorded a meeting with Nathaniel’s mother, telling court he wanted to avoid “confusion” over what was said at the meeting. As the Star has previously reported, Amlin, following his time on the Nathaniel probe, was charged in an unrelated matter with sexually assaulting a female OPP officer over a 2010 incident at the OPP academy training facility where they were assigned dorm rooms during a course. (The complaint was not made until years later.) Amlin, then a sergeant, pleaded guilty in criminal court to the lesser included charge of simple assault. In his guilty plea he admitted to entering a female officer’s darkened room, jumping on top of her and “dry humping” her. Amlin received a 12-month probationary order from the court, was allowed to remain as a police officer, but was reduced in rank to constable after a disciplinary hearing."
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SUB-HEADING: "Babysitter Meggin Van Hoof is charged with manslaughter over the sudden death of toddler Nathaniel McLellan in October 2015, six years before she was eventually charged."
GIST: "An Ontario Provincial Police officer has denied asking the mother of a dead toddler to gather evidence for him, a London court has heard.
Const. Todd Amlin was on the witness stand Wednesday in the long-running manslaughter case involving the toddler’s babysitter. Geoff Snow, babysitter Meggin Van Hoof’s lawyer, was questioning Amlin about his interactions with toddler Nathaniel McLellan’s mother in the weeks and months after her son’s October 2015 death.
“Did you at any point tell Rose-Anne Van De Wiele to gather evidence in this case?” lawyer Snow asked Amlin, who was then serving as the victim-liaison officer for the toddler’s family. A victim-liaison officer is designated to providing trauma-informed support to a family member who has been a victim of a crime.
Amlin said he never specifically asked Van De Wiele to dig up information, but he was open to her passing on information.
“It would be, again, very open-ended in terms of if you have information that would be beneficial, please let us know,” Amlin said.
Van Hoof was charged with manslaughter in 2021, following publication of a Star investigation into the case. Van Hoof has pleaded not guilty. Court has heard that Van Hoof was caring for 15-month old Nathaniel at her home daycare when the boy became unwell. Van Hoof called Van De Wiele, who was teaching at a nearby school. Van De Wiele rushed to pick up her son, who died of a serious head trauma several days later in hospital.
During Van De Wiele’s cross-examination, Snow has suggested that her goal was to have his client, Van Hoof, charged. In one email raised previously, Van De Wiele suggested to a senior detective that police dig into Van Hoof’s cellphone “pings” to track her location on the day Nathaniel became unwell. Van De Wiele, who police initially considered a suspect, has told court that her only goal was to find out what happened to her son.
Wednesday, court was shown notes of a police meeting more than a year after Nathaniel died in which Amlin briefed other officers involved in the case on his recent contacts with Van De Wiele. In the note, Amlin reports to fellow officers that Van De Wiele “questions why Meggin Van Hoof has not been charged.”
Amlin agreed with Snow that Van De Wiele said that to him. He testified that Van De Wiele frequently reached out to him and described an “excessive amount of emails” sent to him by Van De Wiele about her son’s case.
At one point, Amlin, assigned as the family’s victim liaison officer, secretly recorded a meeting with Nathaniel’s mother, telling court he wanted to avoid “confusion” over what was said at the meeting.
As the Star has previously reported, Amlin, following his time on the Nathaniel probe, was charged in an unrelated matter with sexually assaulting a female OPP officer over a 2010 incident at the OPP academy training facility where they were assigned dorm rooms during a course. (The complaint was not made until years later.) Amlin, then a sergeant, pleaded guilty in criminal court to the lesser included charge of simple assault.
In his guilty plea he admitted to entering a female officer’s darkened room, jumping on top of her and “dry humping” her. Amlin received a 12-month probationary order from the court, was allowed to remain as a police officer, but was reduced in rank to constable after a disciplinary hearing.
The trial in front of Justice Michael Carnegie, without a jury, resumes Thursday, then takes a break until June 8 for one week of testimony, then breaks again until the fall."
The entire story can be read at:
article_4c34bac6-1a3c-4114-b83e-8a85b939705c.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;