Crown challenges accused adopter’s claim she was not warned about boys’ behaviour; defendant says she ‘hates’ her texts
At her trial, Becky Hamber was shown caseworker notes that a foster mother said documented aggressive incidents. Hamber expressed remorse over hateful texts she and her wife sent.
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By Torontoer Staff
Becky Hamber, one of two women charged with first-degree murder in the death of a boy who lived with them, was confronted in court with notes from a 2017 meeting that describe aggressive incidents involving the brothers she and her wife were trying to adopt. Hamber has maintained she was never adequately informed about the boys’ behavioural histories before they moved into the Burlington home where she and Brandy Cooney lived.
The older boy died in the basement of that home in 2022. The Crown says the pair used restraint methods and that years of abuse led to his death. The defence argues that social services failed to provide full information about the children, forcing the women to improvise responses to difficult behaviours.
What the caseworker notes say
A Children’s Aid Society worker’s notes from an August 2017 teleconference include many specific concerns raised by the boys’ former foster mother. The foster parent, who had cared for the brothers in Ottawa for five years, testified that she warned Hamber and Cooney about one boy attempting to choke the other and about a pattern of aggressive and problematic behaviours.
- Anxiety and attempts to destroy objects
- Physical aggression toward other children
- Urination on the floor
- Eating to the point of vomiting and hiding food
- Significant defiance at school
- Attempts by the brothers to get each other in trouble
- One brother asked to leave camp after hitting and kicking a staff member
- Both boys reportedly ran away
Prosecutor Kelli Frew asked Hamber directly if she would remember being told a potential child had tried to choke the other. Hamber replied that the meeting was lengthy and that she could not recall everything from almost a decade earlier. She said she would remember details about animals in the household, because the family home included numerous pets.
When Frew pressed on that point, asking if animals were more significant than someone trying to choke another individual, Hamber said, not necessarily.
Text messages and courtroom remorse
The Crown has made the couple’s deleted text messages a central focus of its case. Prosecutors say thousands of pages of texts, erased four days after the older boy’s death, show sustained contempt for the children. The messages repeatedly used insulting language, and in months before the death, Cooney referred to the boy as “it.”
Under cross-examination, Hamber described the messages as venting and dark humour. She said the language was an outlet for frustration and that the women fell into a habit of demeaning the boys in private, not in front of them.
I hate myself. I’m deeply, deeply shocked that I did that, and I’m deeply, deeply ashamed that I did it.
Becky Hamber
Hamber told the court she has lost sleep since the texts were presented as evidence. She said no person should talk about vulnerable children the way she and her wife did, and that the boys were not aware of the language used in the messages.
When Cooney testified earlier, she acknowledged the insult-laden language but said she had difficulty expressing frustration and that she was referring to the boys’ behaviours, not the children themselves.
Defence and prosecution positions
The defence has argued that Hamber and Cooney improvised restraint methods because child-welfare agencies did not fully disclose the boys’ developmental and behavioural histories. That claim is central to the pair’s account of how they managed difficult moments in the home.
The foster mother’s testimony last fall in Milton contradicts that account. She told the court she warned the couple, and that they seemed not to take those warnings seriously and believed they could handle the children’s needs.
The Crown used the foster mother’s account and the caseworker’s notes to challenge Hamber’s statement that she was never informed. Cross-examination aimed to show that the women were aware of the level of risk and the history of concerning incidents.
Next steps in the trial
The trial recessed until Monday, when prosecutor Kelli Frew will continue cross-examining Hamber. The court will hear further testimony and evidence that the Crown says links abusive conduct to the boy’s death, and that counters the defence argument about inadequate disclosure by child-welfare agencies.
Both women face first-degree murder charges and have entered not guilty pleas. The proceedings will continue in Milton as the court weighs testimony, documentary records and the context around both the care the brothers received and the private messages exchanged by their caregivers.
CrimeCourtChild welfareMiltonBurlington
