Norman Kidman

Background

Jeffrey Baldwin was a Canadian child. He was born in Doctor's Hospital in Toronto, the son of Yvonne Kidman and Richard Baldwin. He died on 30 November 2002.

On 28 April 1998, Jeffrey Baldwin and his older sister were taken by the Catholic Children's Aid Society after allegations of abuse were levelled against their parents. They were given into the custody of their maternal grandparents, Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman.

The pair were the longtime common-law partner of Bottineau. Kidman was Bottineau’s longtime common-law partner. Bottineau and Kidman were designated as legal guardians for Jeffrey and his sister, who had suffered abuse at the hands of their birth parents.

The offence

Jeffrey Baldwin died from septic shock after years of mistreatment by his grandparents, Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman. Court testimony described that Jeffrey and his sister were kept in a locked room at night with furnace vents shut, and when released were forced to eat with their hands from a mat on the floor.

During the trial, evidence was heard that the pair used the children as a source of income, collecting government support cheques while offering little in return. The trial heard they kept Jeffrey locked in a bedroom, where he lived in his own feces, and left him to drink from a toilet. The court heard that the rest of the house was normal, including the living quarters of other children in the home.

James Mills, the boyfriend of Baldwin's aunt who also lived in the house, declared that Baldwin's grandmother did not love him or his sister, and that they were purely a "dollars and cents" matter, as his grandparents received social assistance for their care.

Investigation

A worker with the Catholic Children's Aid Society noticed a bruise under Baldwin's eye in 2000, but this was dismissed as an accident and no action was taken.

On the evening of 30 November 2002, Bottineau called 911 to report that Jeffrey Baldwin was not breathing. When emergency workers arrived, they noticed that his body was "covered in sores, bruises and abrasions".

Arrest

On 19 March 2003, Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman were arrested and charged with first-degree murder for their role in Jeffrey Baldwin’s death.

Trial

The trial included evidence that Jeffrey Baldwin was kept in a locked room and forced to sleep in his own excrement. It was said that when he died just shy of his sixth birthday, he weighed less than a healthy one-year-old. His weight at death was slightly less than his weight at his first birthday, almost five years earlier.

Justice David Watt read his decision to a packed courtroom. The grandparents had pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.

The trial heard they had kept Jeffrey locked in a bedroom, where he lived in his own feces, and left him to drink from a toilet. Evidence was presented that they used the children as a source of income, collecting government support cheques while offering little in return.

James Mills testified that he was at home playing video games the night Jeffrey Baldwin died. Mills said he had trouble sleeping that night and heard Jeffrey crying in his bedroom around 2 a.m. Mills testified that there was an inconclusive discussion among some of the adults about taking Jeffrey Baldwin to the hospital but no action was taken. Mills then described that "Then after that it was dead quiet."

Mills testified that Jeffrey Baldwin was "treated like a dog" and would have been "better off at the humane society." Mills also testified: "The kids were her only source of income. She didn't want to lose that and would do everything in her power not to." Mills testified that Jeffrey Baldwin was not an ordinary child being looked after and even loved by foster parents, and that he was a "dollars and cents" matter for his grandmother.

Norman Kidman’s lawyer, Richard Litkowski, had asked court to quash Kidman’s murder conviction and instead send him to prison for manslaughter. Litkowski argued that Bottineau was the one who set the rules of the house and fed and disciplined the children, while Kidman spent most of his days at work and had little direct contact with the kids. Litkowski said: "Kidman’s passivity was morally reprehensible, but it did not make him a murderer." Litkowski told court: "He spent most of his days at work and had little direct contact with the kids."

Sentencing

On 7 April 2006, Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman were convicted of second-degree murder by Justice David Watt in Ontario Superior Court.

Sentencing was delivered on 9 June 2006. Bottineau was sentenced to 22 years in prison, until 2023, and Kidman was sentenced to 20 years, until 2021, before they respectively became eligible for parole.

Under Canadian law, the couple were sentenced automatically to life in prison. The judge had discretion to increase the parole ineligibility from the minimum of 10 years to a maximum of 25 years.

Appeals

Two appeals in the case were dismissed by Ontario’s highest court on 3 March 2011.

Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman asked the Court of Appeal for Ontario to overturn their second-degree murder convictions in the 2002 death of Jeffrey Baldwin.

Bottineau’s lawyer, James Stribopoulos, argued that Bottineau’s conviction should be overturned because the trial judge "swept away evidence of Bottineau’s highly incapacitated mental state." Stribopoulos argued that Bottineau’s IQ of 69—borderline mental retardation—prevented her from understanding that malnutrition was likely to kill the boy.

Justice David Doherty said: "He finds that she’s of limited intellect, but she’s also a lying, manipulative person." Justice Doherty noted that the trial judge had taken Bottineau’s low intellect into account when sentencing her to life in prison.

The judges dismissed arguments that Kidman played no part in Jeffrey’s abuse. Justice Doherty said: "He’s there every day, his room is next to the dungeon that these kids were being tortured in." Justice Doherty also said: "There’s all kinds of evidence that he knocked this kid around."

The judges’ ruling upheld the Crown’s argument that the pair had raised the same issues at trial and there was no reason to interfere with that judge’s decision. Written reasons for the Appeal Court decision were to be issued at a later date.

Outcome

Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced on 9 June 2006.

Aftermath

The Catholic Children's Aid Society said a terrible mistake had been made after the details of Jeffrey Baldwin’s treatment and death became public at the trial, and that in the future any relative wanting to take custody of a child would be thoroughly investigated.

A coroner’s inquest was ordered. Dr. Barry McLellan, the province's chief coroner, announced that an inquest would be held, including "the Toronto Catholic Children's Aid Society's involvement in Jeffrey's placement and the role that agency, and others, had in monitoring his well-being prior to his death," as McLellan said in a release.

Since the case became public, the coroner's office, the provincial government, children's aid societies across the province, and family-court judges took action. The province introduced legislation to make house visits and criminal background checks mandatory before relatives could take custody of children.