Final submissions coming sentencing hearing for La Loche school shooter – CP

Source: The Canadian Press
Oct 20, 2017 14:31

By Jennifer Graham

THE CANADIAN PRESS

MEADOW LAKE, Sask. _ The Crown and defence have finished calling witnesses at the sentencing hearing for a teenager who shot and killed four people and injured seven others at a home and a high school in northern Saskatchewan.

Dr. Mansfield Mela, a psychiatrist for the defence, testified that the teen has fetal alcohol syndrome, also referred to as FASD.

Mela based his confirmation on the findings of a Gladue report, which examines an Indigenous offender’s background for the judge to use when determining a sentence. That report said the teen’s mother drank while pregnant.

Both parents confirmed “there was significant alcohol use in the first trimester,” Mela told court Friday in Meadow Lake, Sask.

Crown prosecutor Scott Barlett questioned why Mela wouldn’t confirm the diagnosis until after the Gladue report was complete, even though Mela interviewed the teen, the teen’s biological mother and adoptive mother.

Court heard the biological mother denied drinking during a phone conversation with Mela, but the doctor said she likely had more trust in the woman writing the Gladue report.

Mela said he “suspected pre-natal alcohol exposure all along” and also based his diagnosis on brain deficits and the teen’s impairment.

The teen has pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and seven counts of attempted murder in the January 2016 shooting in La Loche.

The hearing is to determine whether the teen is sentenced as an adult or a youth _ he cannot be named because he was just shy of his 18th birthday when the shootings occurred.

Lawyers for both sides were to make final arguments to the court Friday afternoon. Judge Janet McIvor has said she will hand down the sentence at a later date.

The teen could get six years of custody and four years probation if he’s sentenced as a youth, but he faces a life sentence as an adult.

Some victims have already told court that the teen should be sentenced as an adult because of the severity of his crimes.

An agreed statement of facts heard when the sentencing hearing started in May detailed the shooter’s murderous path from the home in La Loche to the community’s high school.

Court heard the teen first killed Dayne Fontaine, 17, and then his brother Drayden, who was 13. Dayne pleaded for his life before he was shot 11 times, including twice in the head. Drayden was shot twice.

The teen then drove to the high school, where surveillance footage captured his frightening walk through the halls, his shotgun raised, as students and staff ran in fear.

When police arrived, the shooter ran into a women’s washroom where he put his weapon down and gave himself up.

The teen said he didn’t know what he was thinking when he pulled the trigger.

In June, a neuropsychologist testified for the defence that the teen had an IQ of 68, which is considered well below average.

A child psychiatrist who testified for the Crown has already said the teen did not come across as being clearly developmentally delayed or slow.

INDEX: EDUCATION NATIONAL JUSTICE