Vancouver/CMEDIA: A sentence of seven years in prison has reportedly been handed down to a woman Brigitte Cleroux in B.C. Supreme Court Friday who impersonated nurses in several provinces as well as for offences in British Columbia.
This sentence will be served concurrently with another she’s currently serving for similar offences in Ontario, adding four years to her term.
Over the summer, Cleroux pleaded guilty to crimes including assault, fraud over $5,000 and using forged documents.
Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes said during the sentencing hearing that the prospect of rehabilitation for Cleroux “seems slim” given her extensive criminal history, which dates back to 1989.
Although she was found guilty in 2011of a variety of offences related to impersonating a nurse in Alberta, she still managed to find work posing as a health-care professional in Vancouver, Victoria and Surrey, then later in Ottawa.
After the court heard some of Cleroux’s offences which took place at B.C. Women’s Hospital where she used the name and credentials of a real nurse – whose name is protected by a publication ban – to obtain work in the gynecological surgical services department in 2020.
There she used to administer powerful drugs to patients intravenously, including fentanyl and hydromorphone.
Before resigning in the face of numerous complaints about her abilities and professionalism, Cleroux managed to find work at View Royal Surgical Centre, near Victoria, later that year.
Cleroux treated close to 900 patients in the one year she worked at B.C. Women’s and another 56 — including children — in the three weeks she worked at the private clinic in Victoria.
Prosecutors described her as a “serial fraud artist,” and requested an eight-year sentence for her B.C. offences.
“The only way, the Crown submits, to protect the public from Ms. Cleroux is to segregate her from society,” said lawyer Alexander Burton, at a sentencing hearing earlier this month.
She was also sentenced in Ontario in 20200 for seven years behind bars, for offences that included assault and assault with a weapon.
