Attacker tells judge two years a fit sentence for hammering teen’s head

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This article was published 16/06/2021 (1930 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Given the chance to speak to a judge, a Winnipeg man convicted of an unprovoked hammer attack on a 15-year-old boy showed no concern for his victim, but instead argued he was being treated like a killer.

At a sentencing hearing Wednesday, Crown attorney Ari Milo urged a judge to sentence Jerry Kipling to 12 years in prison for the May 30, 2020, attack in which the claw end of a hammer became embedded in the boy’s skull.

“Twelve years is kind of a long time,” Kipling told provincial court Judge Murray Thompson near the end of the two-hour hearing. “This isn’t a murder case. Twelve years is pretty much a manslaughter. I think maybe two more years should be about right.”

Thompson convicted Kipling of one count of aggravated assault following a trial earlier this year.

Court heard evidence Kipling attacked the boy after the two struck up a conversation at a Selkirk Avenue pizza restaurant.

According to an agreed statement of facts provided to the court, the boy and his attacker were talking when the man showed the boy the contents of his backpack, including a hammer and what appeared to be a knife.

The two “appeared to be getting along and were laughing,” before the boy collected his order and made his way towards the exit. That’s when the man followed him and hit him in the head with the claw end of the hammer.

The handle of the hammer broke off, leaving the claw end embedded in the boy’s skull. The man picked up the hammer handle and ran from the store.

The boy — who wears a helmet to protect his damaged skull — spent three weeks in hospital and has had three neurosurgeries cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He has lost function in his right arm and now has a stutter.

“He will never have a proper life,” the boy’s aunt wrote in a victim impact statement provided to court. “He’s considered ‘special needs’ now.”

At trial, Kipling argued he wasn’t the man pictured in restaurant security video showing the attack, but his aunt Mary Kipling and cousin Darrel Kelly both provided testimony positively identifying Kipling as the same man.

Kipling’s criminal record includes four convictions for violence, two of them for a “chillingly similar” attack on Mary Kipling and Darrel Kelly in 2015, court heard.

At the time of the attack on the boy, Kipling was on bail for another assault and breaching court orders. Since his arrest, he has been charged with stabbing another inmate in remand custody.

“The vicious, cowardly assault on (the teen victim) was not an aberration, this is who Jerry Kipling is: a violent, unrepentant offender at the highest level of dangerousness,” Milo said.

In the 2015 incident, Kipling attacked his aunt with a knife after she asked him to leave her home; and slashed his cousin in the chest and shoulder when he tried to intervene.

Queen’s Bench Justice Vic Toews sentenced Kipling to three years in prison and in a forecast of things to come, expressed concern he would reoffend when released.

“I’ve got to tell you, Mr. Kipling, you’ve gotten a break today, and I can tell you that I am still very concerned about you,” Toews said.

Defence lawyer Mike Cook suggested Wednesday that Kipling had been using meth at the time of the attack.

“Everything seems to point that there is no mental health issue, per se,” said Cook, who recommended Kipling be sentenced to no more than eight years in prison. “Perhaps it’s an organic cause that can be treated with medication.”

Thompson reserved his decision and is expected to sentence Kipling this summer.

As the hearing wound to a close, Kipling, seemingly frustrated he would not be sentenced said: “I will take the 12 years. I just want to get this over with.”

“That’s not the way it works,” Thompson said. “You don’t just ask for a sentence and get it.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca