17-year-old gets 30-month sentence for role in attack on youth workers

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This article was published 10/05/2017 (3100 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The law can never bring back what two youth workers lost when they were attacked and left with lifelong injuries by the teen under their care, a Manitoba provincial court judge said Wednesday as she imposed a near-maximum youth sentence on one of three boys, who have all pleaded guilty.

“Sometimes a crime is so shocking to the community that faith in our legal and democratic institutions can be shaken, and this is one of those crimes,” but the legal principles in place for youth sentences are “sound and strong and resilient,” provincial court Judge Cynthia Devine said as she handed down a 30-month sentence on a 17-year-old.

The teen, who has intellectual and physical disabilities, “went along with” a plan to beat and rob two women who were staffing a Selkirk youth treatment facility.

The teen pleaded guilty to robbery Tuesday as part of a plea bargain to avoid facing an adult sentence and additional time behind bars, something the Crown intended to request if the case had gone to trial. The maximum youth sentence for robbery is three years, but the teen is being sentenced to 30 months in addition to the 344 days he’s already spent behind bars. The sentence includes 20 months in custody and 10 months on community supervision. The teen is the last to plead guilty and the first to be sentenced among two other boys who played a role in what the judge described as “a violent, horrible and senseless crime that has affected two women and the community.”

When he was given an opportunity to speak just before he was sentenced, the teen stood to apologize, saying he had gotten along well with the victims, a 55-year-old youth care worker and a 23-year-old Red River College student who was completing the final shift of her three-week practicum the night she was attacked.

“I feel bad that we had to take it away from her. She was starting her own life,” the teen said of former practicum student Jackie Healey, who was present in court Wednesday.

Later, Healey said she couldn’t help but feel some compassion for the boy.

“I don’t hate him. I kind of feel sorry for him,” she said. “When he stood up and he apologized, it brought tears to my eyes. I wasn’t expecting that. I didn’t think he was going to apologize at all.”

The teen previously told his defence lawyers he didn’t understand why he “took that turn” and said he wished it never happened. His lawyer, Tara Walker, said he was diagnosed with fetal-alcohol syndrome when he was four years old, having been born into a family from Norway House that struggled with generations of trauma, substance abuse and crime. He was taken into foster care but would often run away to see his biological mother. She called Child and Family Services, which placed the teen at the Selkirk youth centre, court heard.

The teen and another boy, 16, were the last remaining residents of the Behavioural Health Foundations’ addictions and mental health treatment centre on May 29, 2016, when they hatched a plan to escape the Selkirk facility — which was scheduled to close in June — even though they had only a few days left of their stay. Along with a third teen who had met up with them in Selkirk earlier that day, the boys planned to rob the only two staff members at the centre and take off in a stolen vehicle headed for Winnipeg. Although the teen sentenced Wednesday later said he initially didn’t think they would actually go through with the plan, he “followed instructions” and was present when the 16-year-old boy attacked the two women with a metal baseball bat and billiard balls wrapped in a bandana, defence lawyer Tara Walker said.

“This particular person, of course, did not wield the bat. This young person did not wield the (billiard-ball) weapons, but he was present, he was part of the planning,” Judge Devine said. “He could have abandoned (the co-accused), and he did not. He could have warned (the victims), and he did not.”

The Crown is expected to seek an adult sentence for the teen who admitted to inflicting the brutal beatings, which left the two women with injuries including fractured skulls, permanent vision loss, muscle pain and numbness. As the 16-year-old repeatedly beat the support worker before tying her up, she begged him to give the baseball bat to the 17-year-old because she didn’t believe he was part of the plan, court heard. The 17-year-old eventually took the bat away and tried to throw away the bloodied billiard-ball weapons, but he also led the 16-year-old attacker into the office where the practicum student was working without warning her or trying to stop him.

The student, Jackie Healey, managed to pull the fire alarm — which likely saved her from even more severe injuries — before the boys left her in a pool of her own blood. They stole her brother’s truck keys and her cellphone and took off. Healey’s family later received a ticket in the mail after the boys ran a red light in their truck. The 17-year-old was arrested May 31 after police found him in the passenger seat of a stolen car another intoxicated youth was driving erratically in the North End. For that crime, he was sentenced to 18 months of probation, which he’ll serve while behind bars for his role in the youth centre robbery.

Healey and the support worker — who played dead as she fought for her life and escaped to a nearby home — both phoned 911 after the attacks. The support worker has chosen not to speak publicly about the crimes or write a victim-impact statement for the judge to consider. Court heard she is struggling physically and mentally as a result of the attack and does not like to leave her home.

katie.may@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @thatkatiemay