Bells Were Ringing, But Few Listened
Teacher, constable and vice-principal couldn't prevent boy's violent end
By Christie Blatchford
Originally published in the National Post, January 22, 2002
TORONTO — The Children's Aid Society of Toronto appears to have become most keenly interested in Randal Dooley only after the little boy was dead, virtually every inch of his slight frame, inside and out, battered, bruised or broken.
This was the stunning sum of evidence at the criminal trial of Randal's accused killers yesterday.
Charged with second-degree murder in the seven-year-old's death are his natural father, 36-year-old Tony Dooley, and his 30-year-old stepmother, Marcia Dooley.
But while the magnitude of the physical damage they are alleged to have inflicted upon the little boy was not revealed until autopsy—where it was determined that Randal had suffered the sort of massive blunt-force injuries usually seen in young children only when they have darted out between parked cars and been struck by a vehicle—the precariousness of the boy's situation was well-known months before his death.
As David Davidge, then the vice-principal of the boy's school, said yesterday, "Red flags were up, bells were ringing."
Mr. Davidge, who is now retired, was speaking of how things were in the spring of 1998.
It was then, on April 14, that Randal's Grade 1 teacher, Gloria Robson, had discovered dozens of welts, which she believed were whip marks, on the boy's arms.
Mrs. Robson promptly took Randal by the hand to Mr. Davidge's office.
Glamorgan Junior Public School was then undergoing renovation; Mr. Davidge's quarters consisted of a badly lit, windowless room.
There, he looked at the marks on Randal's arms.
He immediately called Mrs. Dooley, who told him the bruises came while Randal was playing, with some cousins whose names she didn't know, at a park she couldn't identify.
Still, Mr. Davidge was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt and not call in the CAS (prompting, he said yesterday, a round of relieved "thank yous" from Mrs. Dooley) until Mrs. Robson objected. "No Dave," the teacher told him, "it's worse than that."
At her insistence, they went to the principal's office, which was better lit. They looked this time at Randal's back. Mr. Davidge realized, "I really have to phone the CAS."
He spoke to a woman named Michelle Pickett at the agency. "I explained the situation fully," Mr. Davidge said. "We're supposed to take direction from the CAS."
"What was the direction of the CAS?" prosecutor Sean Hickey asked.
"She said, 'I'll get back to you'," he said, and when Ms. Pickett did, about 15 minutes later, it was to say, "the CAS weren't getting involved now, the police had been called and were coming."
The police, in the form of the strapping former Toronto Constable Shaun Gillespie, did arrive.
Const. Gillespie was a distance away from the school.
By the time he arrived, Randal was nowhere to be found. Const. Gillespie interviewed Mr. Davidge, made note of reported "criss-cross welts" going from Randal's forearms, up over the shoulder and on to his back, and decided he was dealing with a "very, very serious incident."
The CAS involvement was discussed.
Const. Gillespie himself phoned Ms. Pickett at the CAS, presumably to co-ordinate the investigation.
After what Mr. Davidge told him, and that phone call, he said, he understood "the CAS was not going to be attending. I was notified it was a police matter, not a Children's Aid matter." Here, Const. Gillespie, who is now with the Ontario Provincial Police, looked to presiding judge Mr. Justice Eugene Ewaschuk.
"I was disappointed about that, I can tell you My Lord," he said.
Const. Gillespie looked for Randal around the school, then headed over to the family's nearby apartment. He banged fiercely on the door, but, though he could hear a television set blaring inside, no one answered.
Back at this station, he spoke to his staff sergeant and asked her to "assign some detectives as soon as she could." The jurors have already been told that two officers were assigned the next day, that they talked to Mrs. Dooley and were refused an opportunity to speak to Randal alone, and that no charges were laid, but the case was kept open.
Mr. Davidge said to his knowledge, nobody from the CAS ever did come to the school.
He and Mrs. Robson watched out for the little boy for the next two months, making sure there were no new injuries.
Mr. Davidge made sure to see Randal almost every day; this was a pleasure, he said, because Randal was a particular pet of his, "an exceptional little boy … a lovely, delightful little boy" so friendly, with such "a marvellous sense of humour," he couldn't be ignored.
On Sept. 25, about six months later, the family having moved out of the area and Randal and his brother, Teego, having changed schools (though Randal, in fact, never made it to the new one), Mr. Davidge and Mrs. Robson learned that Randal was dead.
He had been found, with 14 broken ribs and a lacerated liver and pneumonia and evidence of four separate brain injuries, stiff in his eight-year-old brother's bunkbed.
Not quite two weeks later, Mr. Davidge said, he heard from the CAS.
"They called and gave me a series of questions which I found very odd," he said yesterday.
"This woman said, 'Did you expect us to come?' " after the school had reported the terrible marks on Randal.
A reasonable interpretation would appear to be that the agency, having learned of the boy's death, was attempting to discover if it might be in trouble for its lack of interest in him while he was alive, and was trying to get the lay of the land.
Randal Dooley could not have been more clearly in danger if he had been tied to a railway track with a freight train bearing down upon him.
But with a few exceptions—Mrs. Robson, Mr. Davidge, and Const. Gillespie—it appears the adults in authority who might have protected him stood about and asked one another, "Train? What train? I don't hear a train. Do you hear a train?"
