Nathalie Gettliffe sentencing (updated)

Anyone interested in the Nathalie Gettliffe case should know that prosecutors in British Columbia have asked for a two-year jail term when sentence is passed this evening (Monday).

Moreover, they do not feel that her entire time in jail awaiting trial should qualify under the Canadian "credit" system which allows actual sentences to be reduced by up to double the pre-trial custody period.

If Madam Justice Marvyn Koenigsberg follows the prosecution demand, in other words, Gettliffe will still have to serve 14 months before being released.

Some readers will remember that the woman involved in that appalling sex crime in another Canadian province qualified for instant freedom under the same "credit" scheme. Her two years spent in custody was allowed to count double against her four-year sentence.

The actions of Gettliffe, in removing her two children from Canada to France in defiance of a court order, were wrong and punishable.

But they pale into insignificance when set aside the other woman's role in the abduction and gross sexual abuse of two girls, aged 12 and 13.

Chalk and cheese, cries Bill Taylor from Toronto. But why on earth should we not draw attention to such a glaring inconsistency as the further imprisonment sought for Gettliffe immediately after someone guilty of somewhat more evil acts elsewhere in Canada has received compassion and leniency?

Different jurisdiction? Cobblers. Same country.

I may need to gett-a-liffe, as Anon cleverly puts it in the comments below. But Canadian justice, I repeat, has not covered itself in glory in the Gettliffe affair.

To deny a pregnant mother bail pending trial was bad enough. To refuse her these "credits" for part of her time behind bars (the couple of months between arrest and the children's return to Canada and their father's custody) begins to sound, if not vindictive, draconian.

Nathalie Gettliffe's defence has argued for a sentence that would ensure her immediate or early release.

No one at all appears to have canvassed what I believe would be the appropriate and merciful outcome, a suspended sentence.

This would surely take account of the interests of everyone, especially all four children (the two at the centre of the case, and two more by her present companion).

It would also make proper allowance for the harsh punishment Gettliffe has already brought upon herself over the past eight months. And it would acknowledge the extremes to which acrimonious parental battles over child custody can drive one partner or both.

I do not suggest that Judge Koenigsberg has anything but a difficult task to perform, as she herself has admitted. But if I may add to the mitigation already offered to the court, no decent interest would be served by making Gettliffe serve another day in jail.

Once she has been sentenced, I will naturally discuss the case further as soon as I can.

But Salut! am not a news agency and anyone who cannot wait, and is not following the matter in the French or Canadian media, should check the usual internet news sources.