Crown seeks two years’ probation for teens in Southlands party attack

The lawyer representing one of three teens convicted of beating a man at a party in Southlands in March 2016 argued in provincial court in St. John’s Tuesday that they should have the right to remain friends.

“I understand the importance of a no-contact order when it comes to the victim and his family, but these boys are friends,” Christine Casey said of the Crown’s request that they be ordered to have no contact with each other. “It would be setting them up for failure, in my opinion.”

Judge James Walsh disagreed. “Here’s the thing about that. How did they end up at a party in Southlands? They came from the centre of town, crashed a party they weren’t invited to and this is the result,” Walsh said.

He noted Casey’s client, age 17, has a severe drinking problem.

“If I put (him) on an order not to drink, I’m setting him up to fail because he has to deal with his issues. If I make an order not to contact the co-accused, that’s a conscious decision. That’s his choice. I have no sympathy in that regard.”

Ken Hollett, the lawyer for another of the boys, told the court his client had plans to move to P.E.I. for cooking school next fall, and suggested a period of probation that would be over by then.

“It would be good for him to go there without a probation order hanging over his head. He wants to start fresh in a new environment, with new people who take him at face value,” Hollett said, adding the beating was the result of an incident in which the boy had made some “very bad choices.”

“It’s not something that should scar him for life,” Hollett said.

In the back of the courtroom, Michelle Bailey, the mother of victim Zachary Squires, appeared visibly upset. Squires was physically scarred for life by the attack, during which he was beaten and stabbed.

The province’s chief medical examiner testified during the youths’ trial that Squires could easily have died.

Squires was attempting to shut down a party thrown at his family’s home by a younger relative when he was attacked in what Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Ivany called a “swarming.”

The three boys were found guilty in October of assaulting Squires, though there was no evidence to prove which one of them had the knife.

Another teen was acquitted, while a fifth person, 25-year-old Robert Mills, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and assault with a weapon — brass knuckles — for the incident, and was sentenced in July to three years behind bars.

Ivany told the court the “swarming” aspect of the beating should be taken into account, even though the teens had only been found guilty of common assault, and noted two of the boys had breached the conditions of their release since their arrest.

She recommended two years of probation for each of the boys, as well as the no-contact order, a DNA order and a weapons prohibition.

The defence lawyers argued against some of the orders and for much shorter probation periods.

Walsh will sentence the boys Feb. 27.