Marina Alfyorova sat quietly inside the coroner’s court in downtown Toronto Monday, searching for answers in a saga that has haunted her family for more than three years.
She was there for the final day of evidence at an inquest probing her teenage son’s in-custody suicide, an event she links to the “deep depression” he felt at being alone and confined to a jail cell. Gleb Alfyorov hanged himself with his shoelaces at the Syl Apps Youth Centre in Oakville on May 13, 2008, a few days after his 17th birthday.
“I had so much trust in the system, thinking they knew how to operate,” Ms. Alfyorova said in an interview outside court, her eyes welling with tears. “His death in a secure institution shouldn’t have happened.”
The inquest has heard weeks of evidence on the events surrounding Gleb’s death, and as a part of its findings, the jury may issue recommendations to help prevent similar incidents in the future.
Lawyers were expected to deliver their final submissions Monday, but the process was postponed after a series of legal delays, including a last-minute request by Ms. Alfyorova to give evidence. Her request will be considered Tuesday, to be followed by closing submissions.
Gleb’s case is disturbingly similar to that of Ashley Smith, the mentally ill 19-year-old who strangled herself inside a Kitchener prison cell less than a year earlier, and whose death is the focus of a separate coroner’s inquest.
Among the many questions jurors may grapple with is whether Gleb should have been sent to Syl Apps, which failed to complete a court-ordered psychiatric assessment, and how that affected his ultimate fate. The inquest has also raised questions about the adequacy of Ontario’s support system for mentally ill young offenders.
Gleb’s family came to Canada from Kazakhstan nearly a decade ago. As a child, his mother recalled, Gleb was “soft and loving,” an active boy who enjoyed sports and spending time with family. He grew into popular teenager with “a lot of friends and girlfriends,” but fell into a rough patch, getting expelled from school and racking up multiple run-ins with the law.
The incident that brought Gleb to Syl Apps involved an assault on his sister. Arrested in early 2008, Gleb was transferred to the Oakville jail a few months later after a judge ordered him to undergo a 30-day psychiatric assessment. The young man showed clear signs of mental illness; in his diary, Ms. Alfyorova said, her son wrote about how he was a god sent to save the planet.
But the prescribed assessment was never completed. In the meantime, Gleb’s time in at Syl Apps changed him, his mother said.
“He just became different. He spoke differently,” Ms. Alfyorova recalled.
Rebecca Edward, a lawyer for the coroner, said in the days leading to his death, Gleb wrote on his cell wall that he had missed his birthday and was worried he would also miss his mother’s upcoming birthday. Gleb was found hanging from his shoelaces from a metal ceiling grate after spending a month at the Syl Apps facility.
Close to a dozen parties are participating in the inquest, including representatives for the provincial government, Syl Apps and parts of the legal system. The coroner will be tasked with following up on any recommendations the jury issues.
National Post
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