Babcock family learned to hate

VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENTS MADE IN MURDER CASE

The family of Laura Babcock said they have learned to hate since finding out that their daughter was brutally killed and her body was burned in an animal incinerator.

Babcock’s parents and her brother expressed their hatred and heartbreak in a victim impact statement read out Monday at a sentencing hearing for Dellen Millard and Mark Smich, who were found guilty in December of firstdegree murder.

“We hate you for taking Laura’s life away from her,” the family wrote. “She should be laughing, dancing and enjoying life.”

At one point, Crown lawyer Jill Cameron, who was reading the statement, choked up.

“We now say that we have only one child so that we don’t have to answer people’s polite inquiries about our family,” the Babcocks wrote.

Babcock’s family said the woman’s death has taken a heavy toll.

“We always taught our children not to use the word hate. It is too horrible and destructive, but you men have made us hate,” said the Babcocks’ victim impact statement. “We’ve learned to hate.”

Millard, 32, of Toronto, and Smich, 30, of Oakville, Ont., were previously found guilty of first-degree murder in the 2013 death of Hamilton man Tim Bosma.

Dan Ikenson of the Cato Institute said the only action he could think of might violate international trade law.

It involves a rarely used retaliatory measure from a 1974 U.S. trade law.

“Could be anything, but nothing he could do, while remaining true to the trade rules,’’ Ikenson said.

“Presumably, he could invoke Section 301 (of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act) and threaten to impose taxes to mitigate, countervail, reverse foreign practices that he finds unfair. (That) could pass muster with U.S. law, but not WTO rules.’’