Teacher Reported Welts on Boy
By Christie Blatchford
Originally published in the National Post, January 18, 2002
Six months before the glorious child who was Randal Dooley died in his big brother's bunkbed, his magnificent Grade 1 teacher uncovered irrefutable evidence that the little boy was being battered to a pulp.
It was on April 14, 1998, that Gloria Robson rolled up Randal's left sleeve and saw fresh whip marks criss-crossing his slim arm—the same one painfully broken at the elbow two months earlier under circumstances Mrs. Robson already considered suspicious—and she moved swiftly into action.
"I took his hand," she said yesterday. "I told him it was going to be OK."
She took him to the classroom next door, where a close friend was teaching, showed her the awful marks, and then led Randal to the vice-principal's office.
She showed the vice-principal.
They also looked on Randal's back, and saw there the same sort of lashes, "only much more extensive," 25-plus of the criss-cross welts. The vice-principal promptly phoned an as-yet unidentified children's aid society and Toronto Police.
What happened thereafter in those organizations is not at issue at the criminal trial where Mrs. Robson was testifying through her tears yesterday.
This is the second-degree murder trial of Marcia and Tony Dooley, respectively Randal's stepmother and natural father, and its noble purpose is to determine whether one or both of the adult Dooleys are guilty as charged, or innocent.
But Mrs. Robson's startling testimony certainly raises significant questions about the quality of the police and child-welfare investigations that ought to have followed, sure as night follows day, the school's damning report of horrific abuse.
All the jurors have been told thus far is that the day after Mrs. Robson made her discovery, two police detectives visited the townhouse where Randal, who was seven when he died, was then living with his eight-year-old brother, Teego, and their stepmother.
Mr. Dooley, the court has learned, was then in the United States, and did not return to Canada until May, shortly after Marcia gave birth to her own son by him.
Prosecutor Rita Zaied said earlier last week that Marcia told the detectives that Randal incurred the injuries while playing a game called "lickim," a sort of hide-and-seek where the children tag one another with belts or tree branches—a tale preposterous on its face in that it would have meant Randal was tagged dozens and dozens of times. Mrs. Dooley also refused to allow the police to speak to Randal alone.
"No charges were laid," Ms. Zaied said, "and the investigation was kept open." She gave the jurors no details about any further action by the police, or about any probe undertaken by the child-protection agency. Nor did she indicate whether the detectives examined Randal themselves.
During her brief time on the stand, the teacher painted a picture of a little boy who arrived at Glamorgan Junior Public School in November of 1997—Randal and Teego came to Canada from their native Jamaica to live with the father they had not seen since they were toddlers and the woman he had married here—as a bright, "absolute sweetheart" of a child who was immediately popular with his Grade 1 classmates and such a fine athlete he was much sought-after on relay teams.
Mrs. Robson, who has spent her 22-year teaching career primarily with Grade 1s, clearly fell head over heels for the slight boy with the dark, curly eyelashes and ready grin—and just as clearly, the affection was mutual.
Randal would sit at her feet whenever she read aloud to her class, usually greeted her with a hug, and, but for a little "culture shock" at finding himself in a new country smack in the middle of a Canadian winter, was an eager and responsive student.
But it was not long before Mrs. Robson saw signs of trouble in Randal's brave new world.
In January of 1998, she spotted him in the hall once, beside himself over a lost mitten he insisted he had to find. She tried to calm him, but he said if he didn't find it, "My mum's going to lick [hit] me." Sure enough, when he returned that day from lunch, Randal was sporting a mark by his eye, and said Marcia had "licked him with a slipper."
Mrs. Robson notified her principal, who noted it and asked her to watch the boy carefully.
In early February, Randal showed up with his left arm in a sling, and when she asked Marcia about it, "she said he'd fallen on the ice." But Mrs. Robson was alarmed by the fact that Randal was in pain. When he didn't show up when he was slated to, she sought out Teego, and asked him about his little brother—only to later get a blast from the boys' hostile stepmother.
That same month, Mrs. Dooley "accused me of pressing, pressing Randal as to how he broke his arm," Mrs. Robson said.
"Were you?" Ms. Zaied asked.
"Yes, I was," Mrs. Robson replied, "because I'd seen a mark before."
She was as alert, as protective, as a lioness with a cub. She noticed Randal's jacket was torn at the left elbow—Teego told the court earlier this week he watched as Marcia broke his brother's arm forcing it into that jacket—and once, she overheard the stepmother berating the boys, telling Teego he had to make sure Randal ate his lunch.
The jurors have already been told by Ms. Zaied that Randal was often vomiting and lost control of his bowel and bladder, either as a result of the four blunt-force brain injuries he suffered or because he was living in terror.
Then came the day that Mrs. Robson made her grim discovery.
Randal had been absent that morning, and arrived late after lunch. The youngsters were already buzzing with excitement for "reading buddy time" loomed, when the Grade 6s come and read with the little ones. And Randal loved to read.
But that day, he came in without his usual hug for his golden-haired teacher, and just sat at his desk with his head in his arms.
Mrs. Robson was there like a shot.
"What's wrong Randal?" she asked, again and again. Each time, Randal replied, "Nothing, Mrs. Robson." But she persisted, and eventually he allowed her to roll up the sleeve, and she saw, as she gasped yesterday, "His arm was covered in whip marks!"
Gloria Robson is such a good woman she may be haunted by the memory of that April day, when she told this boy she loved that it would be OK.
She did all she could to make it so, and more. She watched over him until that June, when school ended. The family moved away, to a new part of town, out of her reach.
Things were never OK for Randal Dooley again, and by Sept. 25, he was dead.
The note of grace is that for a time, he sat safe at her feet, her lovely voice soft in his ears, and in that, this once, he was blessed.
