Earlier this week, the Office of The Child Advocate (OCA) released its investigation into failures of the state’s Probate Court system and Department of Children and Families (DCF) that led to the placement of a child into the home of Roger Barriault, a Bristol man who allegedly sexually abused the child for over a decade, impregnating her at the age of 12.

“The Office of the Child Advocate finds that there were missed opportunities to intervene to protect Jane,” read the report. “Despite multiple allegations of sexual abuse over a period of years, Jane’s pregnancy at the age of 12, and text messages alluding to Mr. Barriault’s paternity of Jane’s child, DCF did not alert the police to allegations regarding Jane.”

Jane is the name given by OCA to the victim in the report. Per the report, at the age of eight or nine years old, Jane was placed in Barriault’s home in 2006 upon the request of her original guardian who planned to leave the state, and remained in their care until she moved out in 2015. The Barriaults were accused of sexual abuse numerous times during this period, and Mr. Barriault was even identified as a sexual abuser in a previous DCF investigation in 2005, prior to Jane’s placement.

“DCF investigated the family on 27 occasions, substantiating only once prior to substantiating the allegations of sexual abuse in July 2023 and placing Mr. Barriault on the DCF Central Registry,” read the report.

Despite the onslaught of abuse investigations, DCF never reported the allegations of abuse to police, never petitioned courts for a paternity test of Mr. Barriault despite mounting evidence that he fathered Jane’s child, and kept incomplete and insufficient records, allowing Barriault to remain the guardian of Jane, as well as seven to nine other children, for nearly two decades.

The report found that the Barriaults received approximately $400,000 from the state for the care of these children, and managed to receive an additional $23,000 in child support payments from Jane for the child she birthed as a result of sexual abuse. 

Both Roger Barriault and his wife, Darlene, were criminally charged last year. Jane filed a lawsuit in 2023 against the two, as well as Darelene’s mother, Dawn Barkley, who also lived in the house with them. Last year, Jane expanded the scope of the suit to include DCF, and it was reported that she is looking to receive $30 million in restitution for the agency’s failure to protect her.

A Timeline of Abuse and Systemic Failure

The OCA report contained a timeline of events as well as a summary which included numerous instances of systemic failure. The first failure identified by the OCA was the lack of relevant information received by the probate court before deciding to place Jane in the care of the Barriaults.

Per the report, Jane’s original guardian petitioned the probate court to place her in the care of the Barriault family, who were known by the guardian. The probate court ordered DCF to investigate the family prior to her placement, but it was not submitted in a timely fashion, and the Court granted temporary guardianship to the Barriaults in the meantime.

The OCA found that the Probate Court did insufficient research before giving Barriault temporary guardianship. It also found that if it had, it may not have made a difference at that time, as DCF had failed to put Barriault’s name in its records after an investigation into him substantiated that he had sexually abused another child, who the report referred to as Mary, in 2005.

​​”Notably, although Mr. Barriault was identified as the perpetrator of sexual abuse in the report to DCF, he was not identified in the DCF record as an alleged perpetrator and was not interviewed by DCF,” read the report. “As a result, a subsequent search of the DCF record would not have identified Mr. Barriault as an alleged perpetrator of sexual abuse.”

While the report highlighted the failure of DCF officials to properly categorize Barriault as a sexual abuser in their database, it also noted that the probate court failed to order a study before making a decision.

“Had the Probate Court ordered a study, the Probate Court would have had the benefit of this information at time of the first request to make the Barriaults Jane’s temporary guardians,” read the report.

Even without this critical information, the report stressed that state officials should have issued a paternity test at the time of Jane’s pregnancy due to the existence of additional allegations made by Mary, not only in 2005, but also 2006 and 2008. In 2006, Mary again alleged Barriault of sexually assaulting her. Mary was taken out of the care of her guardian, who was friends with the Barriaults, and placed into foster care. Jane was moved for a time into the care of Mrs. Barriault’s sister.

“A DCF investigation and criminal investigation followed, with a resulting substantiation of sexual abuse by Mr. Barriault, placement on DCF’s Central Registry, and arrest,” read the report. “Concurrently, DCF opened an investigation regarding the children in the Barriault home, concerned that they were at risk due to Mary’s allegations of sexual abuse. Jane, then 11, was interviewed and denied any abuse or neglect by the Barriaults. The allegations were unsubstantiated.”

Barriault was arrested in December 2006, and the Probate Court ordered a review of Jane’s guardianship. From 2006 to 2008, Jane remained under the care of Mrs. Barriault’s sister, who, unknown to DCF at the time, still allowed Mr. Barriault access to her. Jane became pregnant at the age of 12 in January of 2008, though DCF would not learn of her pregnancy until August. In February, Barriault beat his criminal case as a result of Mary recanting her claims against him.

“With the criminal case resolved with no conviction, Mr. Barriault appealed the 2006 substantiation and Central Registry decision by DCF,” read the report. “In February 2008, the allegations were administratively overturned based on the resolution of the criminal case without a conviction and Mr. Barriault was removed from the Central Registry.”

The probate court then placed Jane back into the care of Barriault and his wife, per the recommendations of a DCF study which included information regarding Mary’s 2006 allegations, the unsubstantiated claims, but did not include any information from Mary’s 2005 allegations which substantiated Barriault as a sexual abuser, due to DCF’s recordkeeping failures. 

That April, Mary told a therapist that Barriault sexually assaulted both her and Jane, and in August, DCF learned that Jane was pregnant. Jane was interviewed in response to both, but denied any abuse.

“Jane reported that the father of her child was another minor whose full name she did not know and whom she met at a party,” read the report. “Jane’s daughter was born in September 2008 and Jane was withdrawn from school by the Barriaults to care for her. The DCF investigation closed with allegations unsubstantiated and evidence that the family had the resources to meet the needs of the newborn.”

The Barriaults were appointed the temporary guardians of Jane’s child in October 2009, and were provided additional state financial support as a result. From 2012 to 2015, the Barriaults simultaneously battled several other reports of sexual abuse while they themselves petitioned for the guardianship of additional children. In April 2012, a DCF study “noted that there were suspicions that Mr. Barriault might be the father of Jane’s child,” prompting another investigation.

“All of the household members denied Mr. Barriault was the father and Mr. Barriault denied a request by DCF to take a paternity test,” read the report. “Throughout these involvements with DCF, DCF documented that Mr. Barriault was argumentative and did not permit the children in his care to be interviewed alone. DCF did not notify the police of the allegations of sexual assault.”

The OCA argued that DCF should have taken “further action to determine paternity,” noting that DCF could have petitioned for a court ordered paternity test, yet declined to do so.

“While Jane denied any allegations and indicated another youth was the father, no paternity testing was done to confirm paternity,” read the report. “Given the allegations, made by Mary earlier in 2008, that Mr. Barriault sexually assaulted both Mary and Jane, further action to determine paternity was warranted.”

In 2015, at the age of 20, Jane moved out of the Barriault’s house and petitioned the probate court to be removed as the guardian for her daughter, initiating another DCF study. Jane said she did this after Barriault misled her into thinking it necessary to ensure that Jane’s daughter had insurance. The DCF study uncovered text messages between Jane and Barriault that would imply Barriault was the father of her child. This evidence was pulled from a previous DCF study conducted in 2015 on another child in the Barriault home. The text messages from Barriault to Jane were accompanied by a photo of her and her child.

“Please please please please I love you baby,” read the texts. “Look at the beautiful girl I gave you.”

At that time, both the Guardian ad Litem (GAL) assigned to Jane’s daughter and DCF requested the matter be transferred from the probate courts to the Superior Court for Juvenile Matters, but Jane, at the urging of Mr. Barriault, removed her application from the probate court. This left the court with no ability to transfer the case, allowing Barriault to escape justice yet again. While neither DCF nor the probate court could have prevented such a setback, the OCA said that the two parties could have kept the ball rolling by reporting the matter to the police, which they failed to do.

“DCF conducted an internal legal consult and a decision was made not to file a neglect petition, despite a decade of sexual abuse concerns and the recently acquired text message evidence of an apparent admission of paternity,” read the report. “At the time of Jane’s petition, DCF and the GAL appointed for Jane’s child requested paternity testing, but no one made a report to the police after Jane withdrew the petition thus depriving the Probate Court of jurisdiction to issue an order for paternity testing.”

In 2019, Jane was ordered to pay child support for her daughter. In June 2020, Jane took her daughter out of the care of the Barriaults and requested the probate court remove them as guardians, but had to continue to make child support payments to the Barriaults until December 2023. In May 2023, Jane finally reported Barriault to the police herself.

“Jane gave a statement to the police alleging that Mr. Barriault sexually assaulted her on a near daily basis throughout her childhood,” read the report. “Jane reported that sexual abuse by Mr. Barriault dated back to 2004 and continued until she moved out of the home in 2015.”

Jane’s police report launched a police investigation and subsequent DCF investigation. Although witness statements corroborated Jane’s report, interviews with the other minor children in the home “denied any concerns for themselves.” In July 2023, Barriault was finally, again, substantiated by DCF for sexual abuse and placed back on the registry. He was ordered to leave the home, while the other children were kept in the care of Mrs. Barriault.

Continuing to live up to their record of poor recordkeeping, the OCA found that DCF completed an assessment for the probate court in December 2023, relating to a different child under the Barriaults’ care. In this report, DCF officials failed to include the fact that the agency substantiated Barriault for sexual abuse earlier that year, and failed to include information on seven other reports into the home from 2016-2019.

In early 2024, Mr. and Mrs. Barriault was arrested after a paternity test confirmed Barriault as the father of Jane’s child. DCF launched another investigation, finally removing all of the children from the home.

The OCA’s Recommendations and DCF’s Response

The OCA noted in the executive summary of its report that DCF’s assessments for probate court “are not treated as investigations,” leading to different recordkeeping standards.

“The way information is recorded by DCF in relation to assessments for the Probate Court may result in a lack of complete and accurate information, may impact the availability of complete and accurate information for future investigations or assessments, and may create a lack of clarity on whether and when police reports are required,” read the summary.

It also noted that probate court judges and panel attorneys alike receive no training “specific to guardianship of minors and issues related to child abuse and neglect, the impact of trauma, or recognizing signs of grooming or sexual abuse.”

The OCA recommended the creation of a legislative working group to review the laws and protocols related to probate court guardian cases, and to make recommendations for improvement. The OCA also recommended changes to the law that would require those petitioning for the removal of a child’s current guardians be informed of all the proper channels to which they may report suspected neglect or abuse of the child, as well as other pertinent information.

Furthermore, the OCA recommended DCF make several policy changes regarding its handling of probate court cases. The OCA recommended changes to the agency’s recordkeeping protocols, recommended a requirement to report any allegations of sexual or serious physical abuse to the police, and recommended the development of a quality assurance framework between the agency and probate court system.

Included at the bottom of the report was DCF’s response. The agency claimed that it has incorporated numerous policy changes from 2005 until now, arguing against the utility of the OCA’s analysis.

“The system we have today has evolved significantly over the past 20 years, making the extensive inclusion of the decades-old Barriault case of limited utility for purposes of this report,” read their response. “For that reason, and due to ongoing criminal proceedings, DCF is not providing further comment here on that specific case.”

DCF claimed that the way it proceeds in investigating probate cases and other cases “is intentionally and appropriately different,” and that its “limited role in Probate cases allows probate workers to carry a higher caseload than social workers handling child abuse and neglect investigations.”

DCF also said that it offers joint training for DCF and probate court staff, and that its social workers and probate social workers “undergo extensive pre-service training related to child abuse and neglect, trauma, assessment, case planning and services to support the safety, permanency and well-being of the children we serve.”

DCF concluded its response by promising to “remain committed to working in partnership with PCA, OCA and other system partners to support and improve the services we all provide to CT’s children and families.”

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