A sick juror has delayed the cross-examination of the mother of a 13-year-old girl found dead in a Burnaby park six years ago.
The woman was in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver Monday morning for a second day of cross-examination at the trial of Ibrahim Ali.
Before the proceedings could begin, however, Justice Lance Bernard announced a juror was ill, and the cross-examination would need to be delayed until she was better.
Ali is on trial for first-degree murder in the young teen's death.
Her body was found in Central Park in the early morning hours of July 19, 2017, less than two hours after her family reported her missing at about 11 p.m. the night before.
Ali has pleaded not guilty.
Neither the victim nor her mother can be identified because of a publication ban.
Ali's lawyer, Kevin McCullough, began his cross-examination of the girl's mother Friday, shortly after she had finished telling the court about police showing her her daughter's purse and cellphone, which officers had found beside a darkened trail in Central Park in the early morning hours of July 19, 2017.
It wasn't until later that she was told her daughter's body had already been found, she said.
"It was the darkest day for me," she said through a Mandarin interpreter. "My heart was bleeding."
The woman requested a five-minute break at the end of her direct testimony and then buried her face in her hands and wept before being led from the courtroom.
At the beginning of his cross-examination, McCullough told the woman he was very sorry for her loss and that he had 'many difficult questions" she would have to answer.
He then questioned her closely about her relationship with her daughter and her daughter's behaviour – challenging the picture created by Crown witnesses so far.
McCullough suggested the woman had been considering quitting her grocery-store job in July 2017 because her relationship with her daughter had "deteriorated."
When Crown prosecutor Isobel Keeley objected to the question, arguing it was irrelevant to what had happened to the girl, McCullough said the Crown had elicited lots of information about the strength of the girl's relationship with her mother.
"I am in the process of challenging that and the credibility and reliability of that," McCullough told the court.
When he asked the question again, however, the woman said she had only considered quitting her job because her supervisor wasn't going to give her time off for a trip she had planned for her daughter and a schoolmate.
McCullough also asked the woman about a statement she had given to police at 1:37 a.m. on July 19, 2017, before she knew police had found her daughter's body in the park.
When asked by the Crown earlier, the woman had said the girl did not leave the apartment after dark and always told her mother where she was going.
But McCullough pointed to sections in the police statement where the woman had said her daughter didn't "really communicate" with her at the time and would avoid her, leaving whatever room her mother was in.
"Not really communicating, doesn’t mean no communication," the woman said.
McCullough suggested the girl didn't want to spend time with her mother because her mother was "nagging" her.
The mother, a former high school teacher in China, acknowledged her academic expectations were "a little higher."
"If her grades did not meet with my expectations, perhaps I would say it to her and want her to work harder," the woman said.
When McCullough suggested the girl didn't listen to her at all, however, the woman disagreed.
"Mostly she did," the woman said.
Earlier in the trial, McCullough had asked the girl's brother about her relationship with her mom as well.
"I take it you knew that your sister was having conflicts with your mother," McCullough had asked the brother.
"Yes," the brother said.
But Crown objected to the question on the basis of relevance as well, and McCullough didn't pursue it further.
If the juror's condition improves, the cross examination of the girl's mother is expected to continue Tuesday.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
Email cnaylor@burnabynow.com
