Alex Radita 'sentenced' to death, says social worker of B.C. judge's decision to return boy to parents

The judge who gave a diabetic boy back to his parents a decade before they would be accused of his murder "sentenced Alex to death," says a social worker who became so traumatized after the decisionthat she now suffers post-traumatic stress disorder.

Patricia MacDonaldspoke to CBC News days after she testified at the Emil andRodicaRaditafirst-degree murder trial in Calgary.

The parents were chargedafter Alex'semaciated body was found inside the family's Calgary home in 2013. The 15-year-old weighed 37 pounds, and died of starvation and neglect,complications from untreated diabetes.

MacDonald fought against Alex Radita being returned to his parents in 2004 after he was seized by social services the year before. The thenfive-year-old boy had been taken to hospital, emaciated from untreated diabetes and so close to death thatone doctor testified Alex would have had just hours to live if he didn't receive treatment.

"I had to hold on to the bench in front of me and I just said under my breath, 'He's just sentenced Alex to death,'" said MacDonald, aftershe learned B.C. Judge J.G. Cohen decided to returnAlex to his parents.

• Calgary teen Alex Radita's final birthday photos released by judge at parents' murder trial

MacDonaldhas been off work for two years. She's never spokenpubliclyabout Alex. Now, she wants the public to know that he had people inhis life who were trying to protect him.

"We, including myself tried our very hardest toprotectAlex, to keep him alive," saidMacDonald. "I think for us theministry we were failed by the court system."

MacDonald said thatmost of the time, the ministry and the parents worked together on a game plan to get children back with their families in a safe environment, but she did not feel Alex would survive with the Raditas.

"I had never come across, in my whole career, parents that were so difficult, so resistant, so angry, hostile as the Raditas," said MacDonald.

"How did he not get it?"

MacDonald saidshe wondered about Cohen's decision.

"It's astounding ... how could he have made that order given all of that evidence?"

'Judges speak once'

By the time Alex was taken from his parents in 2003, there was evidence the diabetic boy had gone, at times, years without seeing a doctor. One of the physicians who treated the five-year-old when he arrived at hospital testified last week and became visibly emotional when looking at photos of the emaciated boy.

The Raditashad a long history of denying Alex's conditionand refusing to properly treat it, according to evidence presented at the murder trial.

"They had no intention of caring for his diabetes, even though they knew how," said MacDonald.

"The mother was very capable, she was very intelligent, she was able to change the insulin according to his blood sugar levels so really there was no reason for Alex to have deteriorated into that condition."

• 'He rise up': Parents on trial for murder told church members their son died but was resurrected by God

But in his written decision to return Alex, Cohen often laid blame on MacDonaldwho, in a telephone interview from her home in B.C., said she felt under attack by the provincial court judge at the 2004 hearing.

"There had been a misunderstanding of the facts by the social worker," wrote Cohen. "This was not a case of denial of diagnosis and withdrawal of treatment, rather it was a case of acceptance of the diagnosis but with poor management of its complex treatment regime."

Cohen said that Alex was now enrolled in school and any deterioration would be "visible to the outside world."

"[Alex] is now a full-time student under the watchful eye of a teacher each and everyday of the school week," he wrote.

But shortly after Alex was returned to his parents, he stopped going to school. And when the doctor the Raditas had agreed could treatAlex moved offices in 2008, they stopped showing up for appointments.

By 2009, the family had moved to Alberta, where Alex was never taken to seea doctor,accordingto evidence atthe trial.

CBC News reached out to Cohen for a comment, but the Provincial Court of British Columbia said in a brief statement it was "unable to assist" with the request.

"Judges speak once through their reasons for judgment, and it would be inappropriate for the judges themselves to subsequently comment or attempt to explain what they meant," reads the statement.

"Such a practice would lead to uncertainty in the law and would defeat the goal of finality in litigation."

'Failed by the court system'

In most murder trials, victims'family members come to court to bear witness to the process. Most saythey are there to honour their loved ones.

In Alex's case, his parents are both in the prisoners' box, none ofhis seven siblings haveshown up it is possible they could be called as witnesses and would therefore be excluded from the courtroomand he never attended school after the year he spent in foster care,so likely did not have any friends.

A handful of people, though, have grieved publicly for Alex either in the witness boxor in interviews outside the courtroom.

But most are people who should never have been in the boy's life to begin with:a police officer, a doctor who specialized in malnutrition, and a social worker,MacDonald.

'Alex Alert'

The murder trial is in its fourth week but is expected to go longer than expected,so a continuation date will likely be set for sometime in the fall of 2016.

If any good can come from Alex's death, it would be in the form of systemic change that could offer protections to othervulnerablechildren that Alex wasn't afforded, says MacDonald.

Something like an Amber Alert, MacDonald proposes an "Alex Alert" that could be used when families under investigation by social services flee a jurisdiction.

"The Raditas aren't the first family I've had do that," said MacDonald.

"They just pick up and leave, they'll leave in the middle of the night ... and then you go around to the house and they're gone. And we have no way of tracking where they have gone."

• MORE CRIME NEWS |'She and God were going to prove us wrong:' Doctor recalls diabetic teen's mom at murder trial
• MORE CRIME NEWS | Students alarmed by failure of Calgary high school to report gun threat immediately