MANDEL: No more jail time for any of the deadly swarming girls?
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In the end, it looks like none of the eight girls guilty in the swarming of Ken Lee will spend one more day in youth jail.
The last teen convicted for the heinous crime that shocked the city and beyond was found guilty of manslaughter in May by Superior Court Justice Philip Campbell and at her sentencing hearing Wednesday, both the defence and the Crown agreed her penalty shouldn’t involve a return to custody.
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Just like the others.
The only disagreement was on the length of probation for the young killer, who was 14 at the time of the “vicious” group assault on the 59-year-old homeless man in the parkette at Front St. and University Ave. five days before Christmas 2022.
Crown Sarah De Filippis told the judge she was abandoning an application to have the girl, now 17, sentenced as an adult and had reconsidered the credit she should earn for the nearly eight months she spent in youth custody before being released on strict bail in August 2023.
By giving her 2 1/2 times credit for what Campbell found were Charter-violating strip searches, she’ll have served the equivalent of 20 months in detention, the prosecutor said, so she proposed a sentence of 16 months probation, with the first 12 months spent in an Intensive Support and Supervision Program (ISSP).
Defence lawyer Kathryn Doyle said the girl, who already had PTSD before the crime, suffers nightmares and flashbacks as a result of the illegal strip searches and should be credited with 20 to 24 months in custody and sentenced to just 12 months probation, with half of it under an ISSP.
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Both Doyle and De Filippis agreed the remorseful teen is making remarkable progress and has great rehabilitative potential: She’s sought counselling on her own initiative, has one semester left to complete high school at an alternative school and has her sights on social work or hair braiding.
Why, the Crown added, she’s even withstood the unprecedented scrutiny this case has brought — from a New York Times reporter at the girls’ bail hearing to being the basis of an episode of Law and Order Toronto.
When she rose to speak, she certainly seemed nothing like the feral attacker seen over and over in the shocking swarming videos played at her trial.
“I’m ready to finally express how I feel about everything that happened,” she began shakily. “I want to say that I’m sorry to Mr. Lee’s family, and especially Ms. Tong, who was present that evening.”
The senseless attack began over one of the girl’s coveting a bottle of booze belonging to Lee’s friend, Erika Tong.
When Lee stepped in to protect her, the angry mob descended on him like a “bunch of wolves on top of a piece of meat,” as a shelter worker would later say.
Their names protected by the Youth Criminal Justice Act, all the girls, aged between 13 and 16, were originally charged with second-degree murder. Seven would plead guilty to lesser charges – five to manslaughter, one to assault and one to assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm. All were sentenced to different periods of probation.
From the start, this final girl was one of the most violent during the swarming, Campbell said in his May judgment, using a pair of scissors to stab him at least once with “irrational and inexplicable malice.”
Yet the judge acquitted her of second-degree murder because he wasn’t satisfied she intended to kill Lee nor that she’d inflicted the fatal stab wound to his heart. Instead, Campbell convicted her of manslaughter — the charge to which she tried to plead guilty at the beginning of her murder trial but was rebuffed by the Crown.
“I wanted to apologize even though I know it won’t make anything better,” she continued, reading from a letter she’d submitted to court. “And if I had the opportunity to apologize to Mr. Lee, I would. I know nothing I say will ever change what happened. But I still want to say that I’m truly sorry and accept full responsibility and I’m making an effort to grow as a person.”
Choking back tears, she promised she’s changed her mindset and will do “something good” with her future. We can only hope.
She will learn her fate Friday afternoon — but she doesn’t have to worry that she’s going back to jail.
mmandel@postmedia.com
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