The Laura Szendrei murder case has been adjourned to Friday when a date will be fixed for Justice Robin Baird to deliver his decision on whether the North Delta teen's killer will be sentenced as a youth or as an adult.
Last week during a sentencing hearing in Surrey provincial court a convicted murderer called on as a defence witness testified that Szendrei's killer will have a particularly hard time if he's sent to Kent federal penitentiary in Agassiz.
"You cannot be vulnerable in Kent and expect to survive," said John Glendon Flett, who shot an armored car guard in Scarborough in 1978. "He will be locked up in a cell 24 hours a day."
Flett now works with a group called LINC (Longterm Inmates Now in the Community), which helps reintegrate former convicts "
former convicts back into society. The North Delta teenager's killer, whose identity is shielded by the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was just shy of his 18th birthday when he murdered 15-yearold Szendrei in September 2010, striking her over the head at least three times with a metal pipe as she struggled to escape from him along a path in North Delta's Mackie Park.
If he's sentenced as an adult, the young man, now 21, will be sentenced to life in prison without eligibility to apply for parole for seven years. If sentenced as a youth, he faces a seven-year sentence, with a maximum four of those years to be served in prison and the remainder in the community, under supervision.
The sentencing hearing also heard from Harry Draaisma, deputy warden of operations for the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre, which has roughly 600 inmates and a staff of 176.
Draaisma told Baird he's not aware of anyone having served a life sentence in a provincial prison. He said the provincial system is not set up for that.
"I haven't seen a federal inmate do their time in a provincial correctional centre," he told the court. Draaisma added, however, he is not aware of anything preventing the young man from serving a portion of his sentence in the provincial system.
Karen Sloat, of the Correctional Service of Canada, also testified. Defence lawyer Donna Turko asked Sloat about the possibility of getting an override, from a maximum security to minimum-security designation in the federal penal system.
"I think the leap there would be too significant to logically argue," Sloat replied.
The lawyers made their final submissions Thursday.
The young man who pleaded guilty to murdering Szendrei apologized to her family, friends and the community at large last Wednesday as the sentencing hearing got underway.
"I ruined the lives of so many people," he said. "I robbed the community of its sense of safety. I'm truly, truly sorry.
"I wish that I could rewind time and take back that day," he said. "I'm not going to ask for forgiveness because I truly don't deserve it.
"I deserve to go to prison," he said.
