'The system failed,' says family of Cole Harbour murder victim
Aaron Daniel Crawley charged with first-degree murder in Hollie Marie Boland's death
The family of a mother of three who died after being struck in Cole Harbour, N.S., by a car allegedly driven by her longtime partner says the justice system let her down.
Aaron Daniel Crawley, 33, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Hollie Marie Boland, 30. Crawley is in custody and scheduled to return to court on Nov. 29.
Crawley had previously been arrested for a similar attack on Boland in May, and then again for an assault involving her in June. He was out on bail at the time of the alleged attack on Monday. Advocates said the case exposes the vulnerability of women who experience intimate partner violence.
A GoFundMe page for their children said the couple met when Boland was 14 and that her life "was flipped upside down" in the last five months.
"We are at a complete loss of words," Boland's family said in a statement they shared with CBC News. "Our hearts are aching and broken for the loss of our beloved Holly Dolly."
The family said she was a "wonderful" mother who took pride in her job as a support worker, where she helped people in Dartmouth, the community where she was raised.
"We feel at this moment the system failed Hollie, and if they hadn't, she would still be here with all of us and her babies," the family's statement read.
The accused appeared in court via video link from the Burnside jail on Wednesday. He asked to speak but was advised not to.
He did tell the court: "I do plan on co-operating, though, with everything."
No risk assessment
After the earlier charges in May and June, the Crown prosecutor asked the judge to keep Crawley in jail while the cases made their way through the courts, but a judge released him under house arrest with conditions to stay away from the victim.
"Individuals have right to reasonable bail and the court needs to consider bail in every situation, no matter how serious the charge is and how strong the evidence against people," Crown prosecutor Eric Taylor said following court Wednesday.
"And the judge in that case felt that the risk could be alleviated by harsh conditions of house arrest, which he imposed."
Taylor said there was no court-ordered risk assessment on whether Crawley posed a risk to Boland or the wider community prior to the bail decision.
Brian Cox, the president of the Nova Scotia Crown Attorneys' Association, told CBC News the fact that Crawley was accused of a crime while released is a "failure of our justice system."
"This victim was a real person with a real family and children, and we're going to be fighting for their justice right alongside the public's in this matter," he said.
"When we have an intimate partner who's killed while an offender is out on release, that says to me that the bail system is not working."
'These women didn't have to die'
The attack on Boland happened the same day as an alleged axe assault by a man in Pictou County that resulted in the death of an 88-year-old woman. Police have not confirmed the relationship between the accused and victim.
The deaths of the two women have raised concern among advocates who work to prevent violence against women.
Ann de Ste Croix, the provincial co-ordinator with the Transition House Association of Nova Scotia, said there's been a rise in violence against women in Canada, with a woman or a girl being killed every 48 hours.
"Within our organizations, we're seeing an increase in demand for our services," de Ste Croix said. "We're seeing an intensification in the types of violence that people are experiencing as well.
"This is one of many cases within the province that have happened, so I think broadly speaking, I can say that things are getting worse."
De Ste Croix said that while there are services and supports available for victims and survivors of intimate partner violence, more needs to be done to prevent violence and to support those experiencing it.
"There needs to be more wraparound services for victims and supports," she said. "That looks like investments into mental health and addictions and housing and food security and all of those other things that impact those experiencing violence and can make it more difficult to leave."
Feminist advocate Linda MacDonald, with the Truro, N.S.,-based group Persons Against Non-State Torture, agrees that more needs to be done to protect women.
"These women didn't have to die," MacDonald told CBC Radio's Maritime Noon on Wednesday.
MacDonald said all too often women and girls are killed due to their gender, and the justice system doesn't fully take that into account.
"This man should have been considered a serious risk of murder and femicide, and should have been retained until the final sentencing," she said.
"I don't know if [the judge] understood the lethality of the man that he had in front of him: a man that was alleged to have strangled and choked and he's alleged to have used a car to try to harm Hollie before, and whether he understood that there's such serious warnings of femicide there and that house arrest wasn't enough, I have no idea."
With files from Blair Rhodes, Andrew Lam, Maritime Noon and Taryn Grant
