‘It’s horrific’: Family of murdered B.C. mom says courts didn’t protect her from estranged husband

Bailey McCourt, 32, is seen in an undated image.

Bailey McCourt was a proud mother to two daughters, ages three and nine.

“Those girls were the most important thing in her life,” said her uncle Morey Maslak.

McCourt’s family said after she broke up with her youngest daughter’s father, James Plover, she told relatives she feared for her life, and that the courts weren’t protecting her.

“She was frustrated, scared and felt unsupported,“ said Maslak.

Last Friday, a Kelowna judge convicted Plover of four counts of assault by choking and uttering threats in a domestic violence case, but he wasn’t ordered held in custody. He was allowed to walk out of court under conditions that were set when the charges were first laid, with a sentencing hearing scheduled for September.

That same afternoon, Plover allegedly attacked McCourt and her colleague with a hammer, killing his estranged wife.

McCourt was 32.

After a brief police pursuit, Plover was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

“If that doesn’t constitute first-degree murder, then I don’t know what does,” said Maslak. “We are dealing with many, many emotions – and one of them is anger, and we have a lot of questions about how many more times this story is going to air before we’re able to affect change.”

“Something’s wrong in our society when we have conversations like this.”

Maslak questions why Plover was able to walk free after his convictions in the domestic violence case.

“The anger comes from not understanding how we ended up here,” he said.

Angela MacDougall with Battered Women’s Support Services says it’s a particularly shocking case of alleged intimate partner violence.

“This case, because of what we know around lethality and the potential for femicide, was screaming red flags for years. And it’s jarring to see the system fail so spectacularly,” she said. ”And now we have a woman dead, and children without their mother.”

Premier David Eby was asked about the very public murder at an unrelated news conference on Monday afternoon.

“This is horrific to imagine that this happened in the middle of the afternoon in Kelowna, an example of the kind of violence against women we are seeing,” said Eby.

The premier added his government is working to implement the recommendations from a recent report on how to help victims of domestic violence. MacDougall says it can’t happen soon enough.

“Kim Stanton’s report is a blueprint for action that can be taken. And I’m telling you right now that in this case, the sun cannot set without us having concrete steps towards addressing the harms within the system that allow this,” said MacDougall.

“I’m not sure what sort of reform it’s going to take,” said Maslak. “At the end of the day, I also don’t want to take away accountability of this individual who committed this.”

The McCourt family has launched a GoFundMe to raise money for the ongoing care of the two little girls who lost their mother.

“Everyone that’s made a donation, it’s very, very appreciated,” Maslak said. “Our family obviously needs some stability and to surround those little girls with love. And there’s lots of that around them. You know, they have an extremely difficult path ahead of them.”

The family is also very appreciative of the first responders and bystanders who helped McCourt and the other victim of Friday’s attack.

“We want to say thank you to all the members of the community that came forward as witnesses and more importantly, supported the apprehension of this individual after the fact by communicating with the RCMP, following the individual, which ultimately led to his capture. That means a lot to our family,” said Maslak.

The McCourts are left to mourn a young mother who was trying to turn a page in her life, which was tragically cut short by violence.

“She’s a beautiful daughter, granddaughter, sister, cousin, friend,” said Maslak. “That’s all we’ll hold onto.”