Daycare operator handed 18-month jail term after tot strangled in car seat

PORT COQUITLAM, B.C. – The operator of an unlicensed Coquitlam, B.C., daycare has been sentenced to 18 months in jail for the death of a baby in her care.

Maria McFerran has been sentenced in provincial court in Port Coquitlam after pleading guilty to criminal negligence causing the death of Arto Howley.

The infant was just two days short of his first birthday when he was left in McFerran’s care at the family-run Rattle-N-Roll Daycare in January 2011.

McFerran admitted to leaving the child unattended in a car seat and returning more than an hour later to find him unresponsive, with a strap around his neck.

Crown prosecutors were seeking a three-year prison term while defence was asking for six months to a year in custody.

Following the sentencing, McFerran was led from the courtroom in tears. (News1130, CKNW)

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