Sign In
Register
UPDATE: A B.C. Supreme Court judge has sentenced two Trans Mountain pipeline protesters to each serve about a month behind bars.
Henry Sauls, 72, (also known as Secwépemc hereditary chief Sawses) and Romily Cavanaugh, 59, were found guilty of criminal contempt after breaching a court-ordered injunction on Trans Mountain pipeline construction sites when they attended the gate of a worksite off Mission Flats Road on Oct. 15, 2020.
Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick handed Sauls a 28-day prison sentence, rejecting his request for a suspended sentence by taking into consideration the years he spent in residential school as time served.
Fitzpatrick accepted a joint submission of 32 days in jail for Cavanaugh, but denied her request to serve the time intermittently to accommodate her work schedule.
Justice Fitzpatrick rejected Sauls’ request, finding his time in residential school as not enough to displace the primary principle of denunciation and deterrence in sentencing, Benjamin Isitt, the lawyer for Sauls and Cavanaugh, told KTW. He said Fitzpatrick denied Cavanaugh’s request, finding such inconveniences as consequences of sentencing.
He said both his clients are filing appeals against their sentences and convictions.
Original:
An Indigenous man has asked a B.C. Supreme Court judge to consider the time he spent in residential school in Kamloops as time served when sentencing him on a criminal contempt conviction.
Henry Sauls, 72, (also known as Secwépemc hereditary chief Sawses), is one of two Trans Mountain pipeline protesters beings sentenced in court Friday (Feb. 24) for breaching a court-ordered injunction on obstructing the company's worksites back on Oct. 15, 2020.
His lawyer, Benjamin Isitt has asked justice Shelley Fitzpatrick he receive a suspended sentence as the decade he spent as a child at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, essentially in the custody of the state, should more than compensate for the jail term for his protest.
The Crown prosecutor Neil Wiberg has asked for 28 days in jail plus an additional day due to the fact Sauls had to be carried carried by officers to a police car when he was arrested as the Neskonlith resident refused to stand up as he sat in front a gate to a Trans Mountain worksite off Mission Flats Road.
Eight protesters with the Secwépemc Unity Camp to Stop the Trans Mountain Pipeline were scheduled for sentencing this week after being found guilty of the contempt charges when four of them each blocked access to different Trans Mountain worksites on separate days in October 2020 — Oct. 15 and Oct. 17.
Romily Cavanaugh, April Thomas and Jocelyn Pierre were convicted alongside Sauls when they obstructed access to the company's worksites on Oct. 15, 2020, during work hours in Mission Flats. The protest involved tying themselves to objects and work equipment before being arrested by Mounties.
Cavanaugh, 59, is also being sentenced Friday, while Pierre and Thomas had their sentencing adjourned to May 1 as they are having Gladue reports commissioned. Gladue reports are pre-sentencing reports that speak to aboriginal factors in sentencing. The name stems from the 1999 R. v. Gladue Supreme Court of Canada decision.
Isitt told KTW the defence and Crown were able to come to a joint sentencing agreement for Cavanaugh based on the 28-day jail term imposed by justice Fitzpatrick for the four other protesters she sentenced a day earlier for the Oct. 17, 2020 protest.
Crown and defence suggested 32 days in jail for Cavanaugh, adding one day for the fact she had to be carried by officers to a police vehicle and another three days because she zip tied herself to a gate outside the worksite.
Isitt also requested Cavanaugh, a Vancouver resident and former Trans Mountain engineer, complete her jail time intermittently. The ask was that Cavanaugh serve six, five and 21-day stints in jail to accommodate her attending to her work duties with an engineering company currently conducting year end financial reporting.
Cavanaugh was also convicted of mischief for protests from July and October 2021 for which she received a conditional discharge and two years probation last November.
© 2023 Kamloops This Week
02 8005 6525
info@aktengineering.com.au
Recent Comments