Christie Blatchford: Ashley Smith’s belief that ‘death is the only way out’ not the true lunacy of her case

The lunacy of what happened to teenager Ashley Smith is sometimes so staggering that even now, in month three of the Ontario coroner’s inquest probing her death, it utterly beggars belief.

On Oct. 18, 2007, the day before Ashley asphyxiated in her isolation cell, the teenager told a prison psychologist she had “lost hope of ever getting out of prison and believes that death is the only way out.”

The comments are found in the notes of Dr. Cynthia Lanigan, a psychologist at Kitchener’s Grand Valley Institution for Women, the final stop on Ashley’s grand tour of federal prisons and hospitals.

But this is not where the madness lies: Dr. Lanigan recommended the 19-year-old be constantly monitored and noted she remained “a high risk for suicide.”

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Ashley Smith strapped to chair for 8 hours after banging her head

Guards at a Nova Scotia prison used “extraordinary force” when they strapped Ashley Smith in a specially designed restraining chair for eight hours in 2007 for banging her head on the floor of her cell, says the lawyer for the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies.

Jurors at the inquest into Smith’s October 2007 death viewed dramatic video Tuesday showing the teen being strapped into a chair at the Nova Institution because she was harming herself in her segregation cell.

“It’s an extraordinary deprivation of her liberty. She was in that chair for eight hours strapped in like that. It’s an extraordinary use of force on someone who was essentially compliant with them,” Breese Davies said in an interview outside the inquest.

“There doesn’t seem to have been any effort to take measures to de-escalate the situation with her,” Davies said.

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Christie Blatchford: Coralee Smith describes the harrowing deterioration of her daughter, Ashley

A warm, wee slice of the Maritimes has arrived at the Ontario coroner’s inquest examining the grim prison death of teenager Ashley Smith.

With a gracious handshake and proffered condolences from the presiding coroner, Dr. John Carlisle, Ashley’s mother Coralee swept into court Wednesday.

Within 10 minutes, speaking with a soft New Brunswick accent, Ms. Smith from the witness stand was proudly introducing her grandson, Jordan, and her other daughter, Donna, to the small room.
The trio travelled from the family’s home in Moncton for Ms. Smith’s appearance here. Though a so-called “party” with standing at the inquest, which means she is represented by a lawyer, she is testifying here of her own volition.

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Christie Blatchford: Ashley Smith’s prison guards in ‘shroud of misdirection and fear’

They watched as blood vessels broke in her face or eyes. They were reduced to counting the number of breaths she took. They saw her nose bleed and her face turn purple.

And yet when guards at the Grand Valley Institute for Women in Kitchener, Ont., tried to rush into Ashley Smith’s segregation cell to cut off the makeshift ligatures around her neck and save her life, they were occasionally physically stopped by superiors or told to pull back and “re-assess,” and if they went in anyway, they were warned, verbally and in writing, that they would face disciplinary hearings for excessive use of force.

Perhaps most cruelly, in an email sent to managers just eight days before Smith’s death, Cindy Berry, then the acting warden at Grand Valley, criticized the guards for “not removing warmth” — ordinary human warmth — from their interactions with Smith. Ms. Berry had reviewed video of an incident where five female guards and a male had gone into Smith’s cell to remove a ligature. In correctional lingo, this constitutes a “use of force” — indeed, physical force was often required to get the ligatures off Smith — and sets in motion the requirement for video and a great whack of paperwork.

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