Kim Anne Popen

I am recounting this story from memory.  This incident occurred in Sarnia which is opposite Port Huron, Michigan. It is about a baby by the name of Kim Anne Popen.  Her parents were Annals Popen (Around 36 years old) and Jennifer Popen (Around 18 years old).  I don’t recall their job status or too much else about them. Kim Anne was born in Sarnia in early 1975 and died in August 1976 at the age of around 19 months.  She came into contact with the ER in a hospital for the first time in her life at the age of about two months.  The mother gave the hospital staff some kind of story concerning her injuries and the staff accepted the explanation.   However, by the time Kim Anne is ten months old it is clear that Kim Anne was in difficulty.  She was now coming into contact with doctors, nurses, ambulance personnel, police officers, fire personnel and children’s aid society workers.  The situation in 1976 was just more of the same. I do not recall the extent of he injuries but it is safe to say that the injuries had escalated and things were getting extremely serious. Kim Anne Popen died in August 1976 and both parents were changed. I don’t remember the exact nature of the charges.

The trial really attracted the attention of the media and to put it politely there was a journalistic firestorm! The trial was in the newspapers frequently with lots of journalists commenting on it. I believe the mother was found guilty but I don’t remember what sentence the judge handed down.  I don’t remember what happened to Annals Popen.

Now we come to the purpose of this narrative.  The County Court Judge H. Ward Allen who presided at the trial embarked on a study as to why Kim Anne Popen died.  He finished his report in 1982 and it was published in the same year. His findings in a nutshell: No one, and the Judge meant no one, did their statutory duties; not the doctors, nurses, fire personnel, police officers, children’s aid society workers, nor ambulance personnel.

Let us have a look at this “statutory duties” issue. What would the Judge be referring to?  What he might be referring to are the Acts that govern individual occupational groups. This is usually a piece of provincial legislation. Several  examples are the Police Services Act; the Landlord Tennant Act; the Highway Traffic Act (If you drive or have driven a vehicle in Ontario you certainly have heard of that Act). So I would think that there might be say a Doctor’s Act, a Firefighter’s Act, an Ambulance Driver’s Act and so on.  There might be procedures to follow when certain things happen. For example, if a doctor comes into contact with an infant who has bruises on their body maybe the doctor is to notify a supervisor doctor who in turn may take certain action. The same would go for a paramedic, a nurse and so on.  This might extend to a number of occupations such as teachers, social workers, family counselors, social support workers, etc.  So I don’t need to belabor this.  I think the reader gets the idea.