The teenaged girl who fatally stabbed her mother's live-in former boyfriend has been sentenced to 12 months in the Whitehorse youth detention centre, much to the chagrin of the judge who had no other choice but to send her there.

In a sentencing hearing Thursday afternoon, Judge John Faulkner did not try to hide his frustration and disappointment with the bureaucracy which failed to enable the young woman to continue to live with the family who has cared for her since January 2010.

Under their care, she has gone from being a marginal student whose primary interest was drugs and alcohol, to an honour-roll student and valedictorian nominee, Faulkner said, calling the change "miraculous”.

But instead of going to live in Edmonton with the couple where she can attend university, the girl will remain in Whitehorse, in the company of "the very type of people she should avoid like the plague,” Faulkner said, because the government "seems unwilling or unable to come up with any other plan.”

"Once again, the bureaucracy has done battle with humanity, and humanity has been decidedly defeated,” the judge said.

At a previous sentencing hearing, the girl's caregivers said they were happy to have her, but needed some financial support as they live on a single pension and are putting their own daughter through university.

For the past 17 months, they have housed, clothed and fed the girl "without receiving a cent from the government or her parents,” Faulkner pointed out Thursday.

He described the couple's decision to take in a troubled girl whom they hardly knew as "the finest example of the generosity of the human spirit one could imagine.”

As Irene Lubbers, the director of youth probation services, told the Star in an interview Thursday, there is no financial assistance available for families such as this one who take on the care of a young offender who is awaiting trial.

"When they are on bail, it is the parents' responsibility to continue to supervise their child .... When a young person is on bail, we don't provide financial assistance at that time,” Lubbers said.

The Department of Health and Social Services has offered to "facilitate” support-payment negotiations between the girl's parents and caregivers, but as the girl's caretakers have said again and again, they were not willing to get embroiled in money talks with her parents.

Faulkner said he could not blame them for taking that position as he heaped more criticism on the government for not finding a way to support a care plan which is clearly working.

Providing financial support should have been a "no-brainer,” he said, but it was refused because the girl did not fit any "policy pigeonhole”.

The other plan, explored between the last sentencing hearing and this one, was to make an open custody arrangement with the Alberta Health and Social Services department, which would essentially define the couple's home as a secure facility.

But that's not the way Alberta does business, Lubbers said. If the girl were to move to that province while still serving a sentence, she would have to live in an existing group home, she explained.

No one could say what efforts were made to bend that policy for this special case, but Faulkner clearly thought the bureaucracy could have done more.

"The court was thrown a lifeline, but it was quickly yanked back,” he said of the aborted Alberta plan.

"... My disappointment could not be more complete.”

Last week, the husband of the couple who took in the girl told the Star he and his wife were dumbfounded when they were told they would have to undergo a home inspection in order to be approved as an open custody option.

"She lived with us for 18 months and no one had a problem with it, and now they are coming into our home to make sure it's safe?” he fumed. "It is as insulting as it is ridiculous.”

Faulkner echoed that sentiment Thursday, citing the inspection as an example of the inflexible and insensitive policy web surrounding this case.

The husband also criticized the government for failing to provide the girl with counselling in the year and half between her arrest and trial.

"They said they didn't want one of their people becoming a witness in the trial,” he said.

"If that were said, it should be retracted,” Lubbers said Thursday.

She noted however, that in a situation such as this, the counsellor would only be able to talk to the girl about her feelings, not the specifics of the crime.

During the trial, the girl told the court she did not remember actually stabbing the man, only picking up the knife and turning toward him.

Faulkner sentenced the 17-year-old girl to one year of open custody.

That means she will be able to come and go from the youth detention centre between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., followed by two years of probation.