VANCOUVER — A pretend nurse who “used a weapon every time she inserted a needle” in sufferers has been sentenced to a different 4 years in jail on prime of the remaining three years she is already serving in Ontario, a British Columbia Supreme Court docket decide has dominated.
Affiliate Chief Justice Heather Holmes mentioned Friday that the prospects of rehabilitation for Brigitte Cleroux “appear slim,” after she detailed the girl’s intensive prison historical past in a number of Canadian provinces.
Cleroux pleaded responsible to charges of fraud, forgery, assault and assault with a weapon in July arising from three indictments for crimes dedicated in Vancouver, Victoria and Surrey, B.C.
The courtroom heard how Cleroux was on parole for crimes of “dishonesty” in Ontario and moved to B.C. in early 2019, the place she utilized for a place at a Surrey dental clinic beneath a pretend title.
Whereas working on the clinic, Holmes mentioned, Cleroux stole cheques, bilking the clinic of round $8,000, earlier than she left the job in March 2020.
Three months later, she started working at B.C. Girls’s Hospital as a full-time nurse by utilizing the title of an actual nurse who was on go away on the time.
Holmes mentioned the girl she impersonated, whose title is beneath a publication ban, has since modified her title.
The decide mentioned the girl Cleroux impersonated “has needed to abandon the skilled identification she inbuilt her title as a result of Ms. Cleroux stole and contaminated that title and identification to the purpose of destruction.”
The decide broke down how Cleroux used “quite a few” pretend paperwork to get the roles in health-care amenities, offering false references and e-mail addresses that have been beneath her management.
Cleroux handled a whole lot of sufferers, administering injections of probably harmful medication, together with fentanyl, and Holmes mentioned the “widespread floor” between sufferers is that they did not consent to be injected by an unqualified individual.
Ultimately Cleroux was the topic of complaints, resulting in a suspension and later her termination by the hospital in June 2021.
In October 2020, Cleroux had a short-term contract as a post-anesthetic care nurse with a non-public clinic in Victoria however “resigned abruptly” that November after complaints surfaced about her poor expertise and lack of professionalism.
Holmes mentioned Cleroux started making use of for different nursing jobs in early 2021 earlier than leaving her hospital job in Vancouver, touchdown a place at an Ottawa fertility clinic in July 2021, however her “deception got here to mild” after confrontations with a colleague.
Cleroux was arrested in August 2023 by Ottawa police, and pleaded responsible to seven charges together with fraud, assault with a weapon and personation.
She was sentenced to seven years in jail in Ontario, and has about three years left on that sentence.
Holmes outlined Cleroux’s sprawling net of deceit spanning from B.C. to Ontario, Quebec and Alberta.
When she labored at seniors houses in 2017 in Quebec she stole cheques price greater than $23,000 from a 102-year-old resident, Holmes mentioned.
Holmes mentioned there have been 25 sufferer impression statements entered into courtroom, a lot of whom expressed “shattered belief” in B.C.’s public health-care system.
A number of the victims Cleroux handled underwent a number of the “most invasive of procedures” on the “most non-public space of their our bodies,” Holmes mentioned.
Holmes mentioned victims have skilled nervousness, concern, panic assaults and no less than one has been recognized with post-traumatic stress dysfunction.
Others skilled monetary penalties from leaving jobs, and paying for personal care and counselling, she mentioned.
A psychologist who assessed Cleroux couldn’t give a “precise reason” for the girl’s serial offending, discovering she has a “profound lack of perception,” however mentioned she had “quite a few traits” of anti-social, narcissistic, and histrionic persona problems,” the decide mentioned.
Holmes mentioned proof in opposition to Cleroux in B.C. didn’t contain “precise, bodily hurt” to the sufferers, however the Ontario case had a sufferer who quickly misplaced motion of their palms after Cleroux bungled taking their blood.
Holmes mentioned Cleroux, 52, has by no means been professionally certified as a nurse, and her prison file consists of quite a few convictions for fraud and forgery over time in a number of provinces and in the USA, racking up greater than 65 convictions for a variety of fraud-related crimes, her first grownup conviction recorded in 1988.
For many of the charges in opposition to Cleroux, Holmes sentenced her to serve time “concurrently” along with her Ontario jail time period, however made exceptions for consecutive phrases for the assault and assault with a weapon charges.
Holmes mentioned Cleroux’s “deep seated dishonesty” prompted a whole lot of sufferers emotional misery, and sentenced her to a different 4 years in jail to be served after she completes her sentence in Ontario, an “mixture size” of seven years.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Dec. 20, 2024.
Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press
