The Children’s Aid Society (CAS) knew Brandy Cooney and Becky Hamber were zip-tying two boys into one-piece pyjamas and their case worker didn’t tell them to stop, according to an email shown at the couple’s weeks-long murder trial in Milton, Ont.

Holly Simmons, their Halton CAS worker at the time, emailed the two prospective parents in July 2019 and acknowledged they used zip ties so the boys couldn’t take off their clothes, in order to control “urine” and for “safety.”

The worker then advised Cooney and Hamber to stop using zip ties, but only on the tents the boys had been sleeping in.

“In the unlikely event of a fire, this would prevent the children escaping the tent,” Simmons wrote on July 3, 2019.

J.L.'s room in a photo taken after L.L. died and filed as a court exhibit. The boys

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