Montreal mom charged with abandoning daughter ‘in great distress,’ will return to court for July bail hearing

A bail hearing has been scheduled for the mother of a three-year-old Montreal girl who was missing for three days before being found by an Ontario highway.

A bail hearing has been scheduled for next month for a Montreal mother who allegedly abandoned her three-year-old daughter on the side of an Ontario highway last weekend.

The toddler was found alive Wednesday afternoon by an Ontario Provincial Police drone following a massive, four-day search by police in both provinces.

Police believe the young child was left alone the entire time with no food or water but somehow managed to survive on her own until police rescued her on the side of Highway 417 near St. Albert, Ont., about 150 kilometres west of the family home. She was sent to hospital and is said to be in good health.

Her 34-year-old mother was arrested by the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) Monday evening and later charged with one count of child abandonment, an offence that carries a maximum penalty of five years.

Publication ban on young girl’s identity

Appearing in court on Friday at the Valleyfield courthouse wearing a grey crewneck and her hair down, she looked forward while the judge ordered her to not communicate with her daughter or the child’s father.

The judge also issued a publication ban to protect the young girl’s identity. As such, the name of the girl’s mother, or anything else that would identify her, cannot be published.

The Crown is opposing her release from custody.

The judge scheduled a two-day bail hearing on July 3 as the prosecution waits to receive more evidence from police. The accused mother was remanded into custody at the Leclerc detention centre for women in Laval.

No new charges were laid on Friday.

Mother needs help, lawyer says

Her lawyer, Olivier Béliveau, told Noovo Info that his client is someone who needs help, but he has not requested a psychiatric evaluation for her at this time.

Béliveau described her as a “woman who is in great distress” and that she was extremely relieved when she learned that her daughter had been found on Wednesday.

The accused, who does not have a criminal record, walked into a store Sunday afternoon in Coteau-du-Lac, in Quebec’s Montérégie region, to say that she had lost her daughter and couldn’t remember where she had gone in the previous six hours.

After alerting the media about the child’s disappearance, police had said at the time that the child was last seen at 9:45 a.m. Sunday near her home in Montreal’s LaSalle borough.

The case prompted a vast search of roadways and forested areas in both Quebec and Ontario and involved more than 150 police officers, as well as search and rescue volunteers. When the toddler was found, it left many people in Quebec shocked, including police officers who were surprised to find her alive.

Capt. Benoit Richard, a spokesperson for the SQ, said Thursday he had never seen a case like this in his 32 years of policing.

With files from CTV News’ Olivia O’Malley and Noovo Info