The woman who passed herself off as a nurse at BC Women’s Hospital and other health facilities offered a tearful apology to her victims in B.C. Supreme Court Dec. 10.
Brigitte Cleroux pleaded guilty to multiple charges of assault, fraud, impersonating a nurse and forgery in connection with cases at the hospital, a dentist’s office in Surrey, and View Royal Surgical Centre in Victoria. She had used the identity and credentials of a real nurse and created fake resumés, the court heard.
On Dec. 9, Crown prosecutor Alexander Burton told Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes that Cleroux’s crimes have affected more than 900 people. The same day, several of those victims told the court that their faith in the health system had been shattered.
“I apologize to all the patients who were affected directly or indirectly by my actions,” Cleroux said Tuesday. She acknowledged she had caused damage to the B.C. medical system, saying people deserved to be treated by medical professionals.
She pleaded guilty because she was “remorseful and ashamed” by what she had done, she said, noting she had been involved in patients’ care when she shouldn’t have been.
“I wish for the victims to heal,” said Cleroux, who has no medical training or qualifications.
Burton told Holmes a pre-sentencing report from a doctor noted Cleroux exhibited signs of narcissism, grandiosity, antisocial and borderline personality disorders but no history of major mental disorder.
The doctor also said Cleroux had a profound lack of insight and self-awareness.
The Crown is asking for eight years, which, added to the seven-year sentence she is serving in Ontario for similar crimes, would total 15 years.
Defence lawyer Guillaume Garih, however, suggested the sentence should be five to six years concurrent to the Ontario five-year sentence, which has about three years remaining.
Garih said the crimes across Canada were part of a spree, and that the sentence handed down by Holmes should reflect that.
“Anything more would be crushing,” Garih said.
Garih called the crimes ones of dishonesty, not ones of violence.
“She is being sentenced for nothing more than offences of dishonesty,” he said.
Holmes interjected, saying it was not open to the court to infer that nobody was at risk as a result of Cleroux’s actions.
“That is the very essence of our system of qualifications,” Holmes said.
He called for leniency because, he said, Cleroux had been willing to waive the cases to Ontario to be dealt with there. But, he said, the B.C. Crown would not agree.
The case had to be set for trial “to keep the case moving forward” because Cleroux kept firing lawyers, Burton countered. Vancouver Provincial Court heard more than a year ago that Cleroux was ready to enter guilty pleas.
Holmes said she needed to consider the case and suggested she might be ready to pass sentence on Dec. 20.
The cases span three indictments before the court in a case Burton called “highly unusual.”
“The accused is not nor has she ever been a licensed or accredited nurse in … any jurisdiction,” Burton said.
The court heard Cleroux had impersonated a specific nurse and used her credentials to get work at BC Women’s Hospital from June 2020 to June 2021. She also used that information to sign documents for Blue Cross and pension coverage.
Payments were going into her own bank account, as she had crossed out her name and written in the other person’s name on personal cheques to set up direct deposit.
The assault allegations came as a result of using needles to inject patients without consent.
In the case of View Royal Surgical Centre, the allegation was fraud exceeding $5,000 for using the real nurse’s identification to get work. Her work involved narcotics medication, managing pain and discharge issues.
The court heard Cleroux was a team leader in a post-anaesthetic care unit at BC Women’s Hospital dealing with such things as blood transfusions and heart monitoring.
However, complaints soon began to start trickling in, some about a lack of professionalism, others about poor nursing skills or conduct.
Garih said Cleroux only functioned in the roles assigned to her.
“It should be quite clear Ms. Cleroux did not go rogue in performance to the duties assigned to her,” he said. “Had she gone rogue, it is unfathomable that she would have kept a nursing job for any length of time.”
