A Pelican Narrows man has been sentenced to serve two years in jail for manslaughter after an incident in the community in late 2014.
On December 31 of that year, police say 23-year-old Blaine Charles got into an altercation with his 38-year-old brother-in-law Wilfred Brent Sewap.
After the incident, Sewap was taken to the local health centre where he was pronounced dead.
Charles was initially charged with second-degree murder, but on Thursday at the Court of Queen’s Bench in Prince Albert he pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
The Crown and defense came prepared with a joint submission. Crown prosecutor Fran Atkinson said she took many factors into consideration before coming to the agreement with defense.
One is the circumstances of Sewap’s death. Sewap and Charles had been fighting and drinking throughout the night.
In fact, at one point that day police were called to deal with them, but by the time the RCMP arrived the two men weren’t at home.
“Fast forward several hours we have this tragic result,” Atkinson said.
She said there is an element suggesting the cause of Sewap’s death by blunt force trauma to the head, was not intentional. Charles struck Sewap, and Sewap fell to the floor, unconscious. He hit his head on a stud on the wall on his way down.
Atkinson said if they went to trial, witnesses would have been further traumatized because the victim and the accused were both family members
“We were putting a young lady in a very difficult situation. One witness, it was her common-law that died in front of her at the hands of her brother,” he said. “We would end up sort of re-victimizing her.”
After the two-year jail sentence, Charles will be on probation for three years with what the Atkinson describes as very strict conditions. They include a curfew, alcohol ban, anger management and alcohol counselling.
Charles was given time-and-a-half credit toward the sentence for time already spent on remand.
Atkinson says they did this because Charles did not request a bail hearing.
Charles will serve the remaining the remaining days of his sentence, which is about 76 days, at the federal penitentiary in Prince Albert.