TORONTO — A teen who pleaded responsible to assault within the alleged swarming of a homeless Toronto man has taken duty for her function within the lethal incident and is working to get her life again on observe, her lawyer informed a sentencing listening to Wednesday
TORONTO — A teen who pleaded responsible to assault within the alleged swarming of a homeless Toronto man has taken duty for her function within the lethal incident and is working to get her life again on observe, her lawyer informed a sentencing listening to Wednesday.
Defence lawyer Karen Lau Po Hung informed a Toronto court docket the woman has been catching up on her education, seeing a counsellor and slicing down on her consumption of hashish, in addition to planning for her future.
The woman ought to be sentenced to a yr of probation with situations that she proceed collaborating in packages, the defence lawyer argued.
“She has only a nice help system in place that may assist her rehabilitate, reintegrate, and it is clear that she might be held accountable by 12 months’ probation,” Lau Po Hung stated.
Lau Po Hung additionally raised a number of doable mitigating components, together with that the woman was strip searched 3 times whereas in custody in a means that left her utterly bare, which is towards provincial coverage.
“I believe she ought to be given important consideration and mitigation for that,” the lawyer argued.
“On the finish of the day, she was a 13-year-old younger woman,” she stated. “The one time she’d been bare in entrance of anybody else was when she was a toddler, and solely her mom had seen her, in order that made her very uncomfortable.”
The woman pleaded responsible in June to assault inflicting bodily hurt and assault with a weapon. Courtroom has heard the weapon concerned within the latter cost is a bag that belonged to Lee.
Police have alleged that Lee, a 59-year-old man who was dwelling within the metropolis’s shelter system, died after he was swarmed and stabbed by a bunch of women in December 2022.
Eight ladies between the ages of 13 and 16 have been charged with second-degree homicide. Other than the woman who pleaded responsible to assault charges, three others have pleaded responsible to manslaughter.
The remaining 4 ladies are set to face trial in Superior Courtroom subsequent yr, three for second-degree homicide and one for manslaughter. The circumstances have been {split} into two trials as a consequence of scheduling causes, with the primary to begin in January.
Prosecutors stated Wednesday they’re in search of a sentence of eight months in custody and 4 of group supervision for the woman who pleaded responsible to assault charges.
They argued the woman ought to be granted 4 months of credit score for the 41 days she spent in safe custody, which would depart her to serve 4 months in custody and 4 beneath group supervision.
“The Crown’s place is that this was an especially aggravating scenario total, and that (the woman) had a possibility to see what was taking place to Mr. Lee, and she or he concerned herself at pivotal factors,” prosecutor Sarah De Filippis stated.
The defence argued no grownup can be sentenced to custody on these charges.
Attorneys for the woman and one of many teenagers who pleaded responsible to manslaughter have been additionally in court docket Wednesday to argue the strip searches the pair underwent whereas in custody violated their rights beneath the Constitution of Rights and Freedoms.
The problem of strip searches in youth services has been raised by a few of the different ladies as nicely.
Ontario Courtroom Justice David Stewart Rose deemed the searches to be a “important mitigating issue” in sentencing one of many ladies who pleaded responsible to manslaughter in Lee’s demise.
Courtroom heard that woman was left bare throughout six searches at two services the place she was held. She was additionally positioned in isolation for twenty-four hours after a judicial order prohibited strip searches, in keeping with an agreed assertion of info beforehand learn in court docket.
That woman was sentenced to 21 months of probation beneath an Intensive Assist and Supervision Program.
One other woman who pleaded responsible to manslaughter within the case obtained a sentence of 15 months of probation beneath the identical program.
Not one of the accused might be recognized as a result of they’re minors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Dec. 18, 2024.
Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press
