No charges for woman who flashed 5yo boy over dispute

Frustration can make us do many things. Most people get angry, yell, scream, smash things, and some people flash their breasts.

Fifty-six-year-old Canadian woman, Marika De Florio, has raised the ire of some neighbours by flashing her breasts at a five-year-old boy.

Apparently the boy was driving her to distraction by driving a loud all-terrain vehicle past her house.

Frustration at nothing being done led her to conclude that going topless in the street would forced the grandparents to call him inside.

It worked. Problem is, it horrified neighbours Mike and Nancy Berry, who called the police in Seeley’s Bay, Ontario, to report her.

Mr Berry said

I’m not happy with what has been going on, it isn’t right to go around topless in front of kids

Ms De Florio said she resorted to exposing her breasts because police were ignoring her complaints about the “maddening” noise, and vowed to repeat the tactic every time the boy played with the noisy toy.

I’m going mental, I can’t breathe and I’m not moving, but I need some peace. I can’t believe I did this, but they pulled the kid inside and then called police because of their small town mentality.

Police said that Ms De Florio was not doing anything illegal as Canadian law permits women to go topless in public as long as they are not doing so for commercial gain or being overtly sexual.

I’d love to know the canadians legal definition of ‘overtly sexual’. That said, if it takes a woman to expose her breasts to stop noisy neighbours, then who am I to criticise?

[news.com.au]

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9 Comments on this post.
  • James Smith João Pessoa, Brazi
    25 June 2010 at 12:32 pm
    Leave a Reply

    Having had my share of inconsiderate, noisy neighbors, I side with this woman. Is there no anti-noise ordnance there? At least she now has their attention.

    I have to wonder, though. Had she tried speaking with them personally first? Many of these things can be solved by calm, adult contact. True, others cannot and that’s when it becomes necessary to bring legal authorities into it. Although having said that, I approve of her solution. 🙂

  • James Smith João Pessoa, Brazi
    25 June 2010 at 12:32 pm
    Leave a Reply

    Having had my share of inconsiderate, noisy neighbors, I side with this woman. Is there no anti-noise ordnance there? At least she now has their attention.

    I have to wonder, though. Had she tried speaking with them personally first? Many of these things can be solved by calm, adult contact. True, others cannot and that’s when it becomes necessary to bring legal authorities into it. Although having said that, I approve of her solution. 🙂

  • James Smith João Pessoa, Brazil
    25 June 2010 at 7:32 am
    Leave a Reply

    Having had my share of inconsiderate, noisy neighbors, I side with this woman. Is there no anti-noise ordnance there? At least she now has their attention.

    I have to wonder, though. Had she tried speaking with them personally first? Many of these things can be solved by calm, adult contact. True, others cannot and that’s when it becomes necessary to bring legal authorities into it. Although having said that, I approve of her solution. 🙂

  • Rob
    27 June 2010 at 7:35 pm
    Leave a Reply

    Ms De Florio didn’t “flash” nor specifically “expose” herself to the child — she remained on her own property tending to her gardening, albeit topless. That is NOT by definition flashing nor exposing oneself from the perspective of lewdness, sexual advance on a child, nor against the law in Ontario. Would seem that if the police had upheld the law, or Children’s Aid had investigated relative to an unattended child driving an ATV around public streets and the neighbourhood, or reasonable attempts to mediate this by the police had been made it wouldn’t have gotten this far out of hand — Ms De Florio would have gotten the peace and quiet of property everyone has a right to and all the negative media attention towards the grandparents, the child and lack of appropriate police response in the first place could have been avoided.

  • Rob
    27 June 2010 at 7:35 pm
    Leave a Reply

    Ms De Florio didn’t “flash” nor specifically “expose” herself to the child — she remained on her own property tending to her gardening, albeit topless. That is NOT by definition flashing nor exposing oneself from the perspective of lewdness, sexual advance on a child, nor against the law in Ontario. Would seem that if the police had upheld the law, or Children’s Aid had investigated relative to an unattended child driving an ATV around public streets and the neighbourhood, or reasonable attempts to mediate this by the police had been made it wouldn’t have gotten this far out of hand — Ms De Florio would have gotten the peace and quiet of property everyone has a right to and all the negative media attention towards the grandparents, the child and lack of appropriate police response in the first place could have been avoided.

    • Shane Drew
      27 June 2010 at 10:25 pm
      Leave a Reply

      Fair comment Rob, and I agree that the authorities let this woman down. But, she did actually expose herself to a child, with the sole purpose of getting him taken off the streets.

      She ‘resorted to exposing her breasts’ because police let her down in not following up her complaint. She also said she would use the ‘tactic’ again if she had to. She ‘couldn’t believe she did this’ indicates that it was not a case of enjoying the topless experience. She did it for the express reason of having the child removed from the streeet.

      Given that it is not illegal in Canada to do this sort of thing, depending on the motivation of course, she has done nothing wrong in law. Interestingly, it is illegal here in my home country. She would have been in some serious trouble in the same circumstances had she done this here.

      Thanks for your comment Rob. Always interesting to get other views on the subject.

    • Shane Drew
      27 June 2010 at 10:25 pm
      Leave a Reply

      Fair comment Rob, and I agree that the authorities let this woman down. But, she did actually expose herself to a child, with the sole purpose of getting him taken off the streets.

      She ‘resorted to exposing her breasts’ because police let her down in not following up her complaint. She also said she would use the ‘tactic’ again if she had to. She ‘couldn’t believe she did this’ indicates that it was not a case of enjoying the topless experience. She did it for the express reason of having the child removed from the streeet.

      Given that it is not illegal in Canada to do this sort of thing, depending on the motivation of course, she has done nothing wrong in law. Interestingly, it is illegal here in my home country. She would have been in some serious trouble in the same circumstances had she done this here.

      Thanks for your comment Rob. Always interesting to get other views on the subject.

  • Rob
    27 June 2010 at 2:35 pm
    Leave a Reply

    Ms De Florio didn’t “flash” nor specifically “expose” herself to the child — she remained on her own property tending to her gardening, albeit topless. That is NOT by definition flashing nor exposing oneself from the perspective of lewdness, sexual advance on a child, nor against the law in Ontario. Would seem that if the police had upheld the law, or Children’s Aid had investigated relative to an unattended child driving an ATV around public streets and the neighbourhood, or reasonable attempts to mediate this by the police had been made it wouldn’t have gotten this far out of hand — Ms De Florio would have gotten the peace and quiet of property everyone has a right to and all the negative media attention towards the grandparents, the child and lack of appropriate police response in the first place could have been avoided.

    • Shane Drew
      27 June 2010 at 5:25 pm
      Leave a Reply

      Fair comment Rob, and I agree that the authorities let this woman down. But, she did actually expose herself to a child, with the sole purpose of getting him taken off the streets.

      She ‘resorted to exposing her breasts’ because police let her down in not following up her complaint. She also said she would use the ‘tactic’ again if she had to. She ‘couldn’t believe she did this’ indicates that it was not a case of enjoying the topless experience. She did it for the express reason of having the child removed from the streeet.

      Given that it is not illegal in Canada to do this sort of thing, depending on the motivation of course, she has done nothing wrong in law. Interestingly, it is illegal here in my home country. She would have been in some serious trouble in the same circumstances had she done this here.

      Thanks for your comment Rob. Always interesting to get other views on the subject.

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