Teen spent eight months in adult facility by mistake

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/09/2017 (2961 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Manitoba judge is mulling the proper penalty for a 16-year-old boy who shot a man with a pellet gun during an armed robbery and then spent about eight months in an adult jail by mistake.

“I’ve never had this situation before, and it’s very unique,” provincial court Judge Robin Finlayson said during the sentencing hearing on Friday.

The teen, who can’t be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was arrested in January and sent to Milner Ridge Correctional Centre, a minimum-to-maximum security facility for adult males, while awaiting trial.

He was 15 at the time of the offences, but, because his permanent residency card had the wrong birthdate, he was charged as an adult and booked into adult jail. The error only came to light months later.

The teen was transferred into a youth facility last month, after the court received a copy of his birth certificate and an affidavit from his mother. He has pleaded guilty to youth charges.

“The last nine months of his life have been nothing less than horrific,” defence lawyer Jody Ostapiw told the judge on Friday.

“Not to say that a young person in a youth facility isn’t going to have a difficult time, but certainly, things he experienced in the adult facility as a 15-, 16-year-old boy — they’ve left an impression on him.

“That period of time has sent such a strong message to (the accused),” she added.

“It’s stronger than any message this court can send.”

The teen and his family came to Canada after spending time in an African refugee camp, Ostapiw told court.

His mother paid an immigration agent to help with their paperwork, but the agent filled it out incorrectly, the lawyer said. The mother noticed her son had been assigned the wrong birthdate, but was told it would cost extra money to fix the error.

After they arrived in Canada, the teen’s permanent residency card was issued using the incorrect birthdate — which made him out to be some three years older than he really is. It also meant his mother didn’t receive federal child tax benefits on his behalf, Ostapiw said.

“There was no advantage to her to have the birthdate wrong. It was just a matter of not being able to afford to fix it in the Sudan and then really not knowing how to fix it here,” she said.

Ostapiw argued her client should be given extra credit for the months he spent incarcerated at Milner Ridge and put back on a plane home to serve probation in Guelph, Ont., where his family now lives.

Crown attorney Jennifer Comack, however, told court the teen’s crime is worthy of a lengthier sentence. She asked the judge to impose an additional year-long youth sentence.

“He was the one with the loaded gun, he was the one banging on the door, broke the window and ultimately was the one who injured the victim,” Comack said.

The teen, who was 15 when he and three other youth broke into a Kennedy Street apartment suite on July 25, 2016, moved with his family to Guelph before he was identified as a suspect. Video surveillance led police investigators to arrest three others — a 13-year-old boy, a 14-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl — before an arrest warrant was issued for the teen in Guelph.

In pleading guilty to robbery and discharging a weapon with intent, the now-16-year-old admitted he broke into the apartment to get marijuana. He fired the pellet gun after a run-in with the victim in a stairwell, leaving the 23-year-old man with a pellet lodged in his palm. The victim needed surgery to remove the projectile, as well as four stitches to mend a cut on his head.

“His behaviour in custody at either institution hasn’t been particularly good,” Comack told court. “Nonetheless, given the situation and how things transpired, the Crown obviously is agreeing that he should receive one-and-a-half (days) credit” for each day he’s already spent in jail.

Ostapiw argued her client’s behaviour in custody was rooted in his attempts to protect himself and he deserves more than 1.5 credit for being held in an adult facility.

“His behaviour was essentially posturing… for his own protection, things that he would be directed to do that he felt he had to do as a small, younger teenager in that facility,” she said.

“You can see how small he is, you can see how young he looks and you can only imagine how difficult it would be for a 15-, 16-year-old kid to be in an adult facility like Milner Ridge Correctional Centre.”

It’s not common for a youth to face adult charges in Manitoba, but it has happened, particularly in cases involving refugees who don’t have proper identification documents.

Judges are then tasked with holding hearings to determine the accused’s true age.

The Youth Criminal Justice Act, which governs criminal charges for those under 18, states youth must be kept separate from Canada’s adult criminal justice system. It’s meant to follow principles emphasized in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says “every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child’s best interest not to do so.”

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay