Abused children are at the centre of this Montreal police team's work: 'We have
It’s not a job for everyone. Some police detectives prefer to handle, say, drug or fraud cases. But those in the Montreal police department unit which investigates the physical abuse and deaths of children are there because “we want to work with this kind of file. We are interested in the well-being of vulnerable people,” said Caroline Grégoire, one of 12 sergeant-detectives with the Module abus physique et décès d’enfants.
“We are at ease working with victims. We have patience and empathy. We have a great capacity to listen. We know what kind of crimes we will see. Sometimes it is difficult, but we are prepared for it,” she said.
“And we are a great team. We look out for each other.” They meet with a psychologist twice yearly and have a team meeting at least once a year. If there is a difficult case, they have a debrief, she said — and, “if it’s time to cry, you cry,” as Mélanie Provencher, the lieutenant-detective in charge of the module, put it.
The module, established in September of 2020, might not be as well known as other areas of the Montreal police department, but its work is important. And given that this is Police Week and Victims and Survivors of Crime Week, both national events, the department chose to highlight that work.
The module investigates cases related to abuse of a minor by a person of authority: In the majority of cases, that person is a parent, although it can be another authority figure — a teacher, say, or a daycare worker.
The 797 physical abuse files the module handled in 2025 represented an increase of nearly 60 per cent from the 502 cases in 2021, its first full year of operation. The increase is explained largely by greater awareness and reporting by the public of abuse — reporting prompted by such high-profile cases as the 2019 death of a seven-year-old Granby girl who was wrapped from head to toe in tape by her stepmother and suffocated, and the 18-month-old violently attacked in a home daycare in L’Assomption by a worker in December of 2023. The toddler died later in hospital. The worker, Tomy Carranza Ladry, was convicted this year of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 14 years.
“People are more and more aware of the need to protect children,” said Provencher.
The term “abuse” is a broad one, said Grégoire. “We are involved when there is a criminal act: It can be assault, not having furnished care, negligence. It can be many things.”
If most files deal with inappropriate or excessive disciplinary measures, there are also cases of serious abuse and criminal negligence. According to the Youth Protection Act, physical abuse includes such actions as a parent’s inability to control anger toward their child, depriving a child of food, sleep or physical care as punishment, and shaken baby syndrome resulting from brain injury when infants and young children are violently shaken.
All are criminal acts and, depending on the situation, criminal charges may be filed.
Reports of abuse can come from different places, including family members, schools, community organizations and police.
“The department of youth protection contacts us or we contact them or the case results from a 911 call or one from Batshaw Youth and Family Centres or the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions,” Provencher said.
“The cases are almost always urgent and we have to act quickly. We have no backlog.”
Before the module was set up, files involving physical abuse of children were handled individually in the four investigation centres on Montreal police territory. The module brings all the investigators together in one place. Every file is handled by a sergeant-detective, who conducts an investigation, Provencher explained.
Investigators, who apply and must be selected, undergo extensive training, including in a technique designed to elicit accurate information without influencing a child’s answers.
“You need to do interviews in which you do not make suggestions to a child, who would naturally pick up on your suggestions,” said Grégoire. Most of the victims are 11 or younger.
(The module falls under the police department’s sexual assault section and, if a case reported to the module contains an element of sexual assault, the sexual assault team, whose investigators have the same training, would lead the investigation with support from the module. All of it is intended to keep the victims from having to retell their story several times, the detectives said.)
“We don’t ask: ‘Were you hit?’ We get them to tell us. We ask them to talk about fun things, then not fun things and then ask ‘Why are you here?’ Sometimes they don’t know why. We have to get them to speak to us.”
In addition, she said, “we must meet many people to corroborate the child’s version, so that not all the proof is on the back of the child.”
Investigators meet with suspects as well. If interpreters are needed because victims or suspects don’t speak English or French, they are provided.
The rooms in the east-end police station in which the interviews take place are nicely decorated and well-lit — the space was renovated last December, with financial assistance from Info-Crime Montréal — and the atmosphere is non-threatening. There are books to look at and stuffed animals to play with for the children and the investigators wear civilian clothes, not uniforms.
When a young victim is being interviewed, there is a second investigator and a representative of the youth protection department in the next room, watching remotely. “We work together so as not to re-victimize a child by asking the same questions again and again,” Grégoire said.
“We do the investigation and determine, with the department of youth protection and the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions, what is best for the child.”
“Seven of eight of cases don’t go to trial because it is difficult for a child — and we have to think of the child,” said Provencher. “The goal is the protection of the child, who generally wants to stay in the family and not be separated from them.”
If the safety of a child is at risk, however, the youth protection department could recommend, for instance, that a child be placed with a member of his or her extended family or in a foster family.
Abusers are not always charged, but they are registered in Montreal police files as suspects: If another incident is reported, charges could be filed. And social services are involved to ensure that they are educated on ways of correcting a child’s behaviour that respect the law. It is important to educate the people perpetrating the abuse, the detectives said: Rather than malevolence, it could be a parent’s lack of knowledge that influences their behaviour, the detectives said.
“They might have been mistreated and today they are doctors and lawyers: And they say: ‘I was OK.’ They are accomplished but they have baggage,” said Provencher.
“Depending on our life story and our baggage, the boundary between standard educational practices and physical abuse may be blurred,” states a pamphlet on preventing physical abuse against children prepared by the CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l’Île-de-Montréal.
“When we have experienced mistreatment during our childhood, our trauma memory and our insecurities may lead us to repeat the same physical abuse with our own children, especially when we are feeling very stressed at home or at work,” it says. “However, physical abuse may have serious consequences for our children and ourselves.”
It should be noted that, between 1999 and 2024 in Quebec, the proportion of children who experienced minor physical violence, such having their hand slapped or being pinched or spanked, decreased from 48 per cent to 13 per cent, or about 217,490 children, according to the Institut de la statistique du Québec.
The Module abus physique et décès d’enfants is also involved, at the request of the coroner’s office, when a child’s cause of death is unknown. Most of the 12 to 15 deaths they investigate each year are not criminal, “but if we find elements to show there was a criminal act, we can change hats and call homicide and major crimes and get together,” said Provencher. “It’s rare but it does happen.”
