2 total
Offender sentenced to 8 years for manslaughter after throwing a trailer hitch from a moving vehicle.
The offender, an 18-year-old male, threw a heavy trailer hitch from a moving vehicle, striking an Indigenous woman and hastening her death.
He pleaded guilty to the underlying act and was convicted of manslaughter.
The Crown sought 8 to 12 years, arguing high moral culpability and bias against sex workers.
The defence sought 4 years, citing youth, lack of record, and remorse.
The court found the attack was unprovoked, gratuitous, and motivated by bias against women (specifically sex workers).
The court sentenced the offender to 8 years in penitentiary, less 1 month for pre-sentence custody, plus ancillary orders.
Accused found guilty of manslaughter after throwing a trailer hitch that accelerated the victim's death.
The accused threw a heavy trailer hitch from a moving vehicle, striking the victim in the abdomen and rupturing her small bowel.
The victim, who suffered from advanced liver disease, underwent surgery but died five months later from complications including peritonitis and pneumonia.
The accused pleaded guilty to aggravated assault but contested the manslaughter charge, arguing his actions did not cause her death or that delayed medical treatment broke the chain of causation.
The court found that the blunt force trauma was a significant contributing cause that accelerated her death, and that no intervening act severed legal causation.
The accused was found guilty of manslaughter.
