It was difficult to know why Amanda Dumont was crying.

The 32-year-old mother stood in the prisoner’s box, shoulders slumped, whispering to her defence lawyer Ken Marley, before being led away to serve her nine-year sentence in the death of her toddler son, Ryker Daponte-Michaud.

Her ex-boyfriend, Scott Bakker, 28, had been handed the same nine-year prison sentence, with the judge deciding they were “actively complicit” in hiding the burns 20-month-old Ryker suffered three days before he died in Strathroy on May 21, 2014.



Scott Bakker and Amanda Dumont (Supplied photo)

The sentencing brought to an end the sad case of child neglect and an insight into the difficult life of a little boy who died unnecessarily.

In a case full of shocks and sadness, both at the mistrial a year ago and retrial in the summer, it was clear Dumont never accepted responsibility for her little boy’s well-being.

Even after Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance found Dumont to be an “incredible” witness ­following her testimony, Dumont stuck to her guns that it was Bakker, not her, who was responsible for Ryker’s death.

That’s not what the judge decided — and pointed at both Dumont and Bakker as the selfish, neglectful parent and guardian they were after Ryker was scalded accidentally by a cup of hot coffee.

“This situation did not call for sophisticated knowledge or advanced parenting skills,” Pomerance said in her sentencing decision.

“It called for the exercise of basic humanity.”

Ryker would have lived had he been taken for medical care. Instead, for three days, Ryker slowly faded away, while Dumont and Bakker did drugs, fenced stolen property and ignored all the signs of his demise.

“This was not a momentary lapse in care,” Pomerance said. “Ryker suffered for three days. For the duration of that period, very little was done to save his life.

“There was opportunity for the offenders to change their minds and take Ryker to a doctor. They continued on a course of callous neglect, despite his worsening condition.”

The judge could only infer that their reasons were self-serving.

Still, it was incomprehensible how the couple sat the boy, with third-degree burns suffered that morning to his buttocks, genitals, back, abdomen and upper legs, in his car seat for a day while they drove around trying to sell stolen jewelry taken from Bakker’s grandmother.

They lied to Dumont’s grandmother the next day, saying they had taken the toddler for treatment.

“The offenders not only failed to take Ryker for treatment themselves, they spun a web of deceit to ensure no one else would intervene to save Ryker’s life,” Pomerance said.

Pomerance noted that Dumont seemed more interested in her slashed tires and lost dog than her critically injured son the day before he died. The day he died, he was left alone in his crib and neither Dumont nor Bakker checked on him. Pomerance noted that in a videotaped conversation in the Strathroy-Caradoc police cells, they revealed they had stayed in bed all day.

Only when Dumont’s oldest daughter insisted one of them stay home with the children instead of shopping at Wal-Mart was the boy’s body discovered.

“The idea that a parent or guardian would completely ignore a healthy 20-month-old child for an entire day is difficult to understand. The failure to check on the condition of a severely burned child for an entire day verges on staggering,” Pomerance said.

Dumont, the judge noted, has a history of child welfare involvement from the moment she became a mother — and a history of having high-risk boyfriends who were violent and drug-addicted.

Bakker, Dumont’s boyfriend for only five months, had 49 criminal convictions — some involving violence — dating back to 2004. He has mental health issues. As a teen, his mother put him in group home care because of his behavioural issues.

With time served, Bakker has just more than five years left on his prison sentence. He also faces two counts of assault in connection with an incident at the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre.

Dumont has 6½ years to serve.

jsims@postmedia.com

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