Jail guards to stand trial in death of Ont. inmate

Two guards at a London, Ont., jail will have to stand trial for their alleged role in an inmate’s death, Ontario’s top court ruled Monday, reversing an earlier decision to stay charges against the pair due to delayed proceedings.

Corrections officers Leslie Lonsbary and Stephen Jurkus were charged with failing to provide the necessaries of life after 29-year-old Adam Kargus was beaten to death by his cellmate at the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre in October 2013. A lower court stayed the charges against the two officers in February 2017, ruling that the case against them had eclipsed the 30-month time limit for trials set out by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Crown prosecutors appealed that decision, arguing the judge made errors in her analysis of the time-frame rules, which allow certain types of delays to occur without counting toward the 30-month limit. In a decision released Monday, the Ontario Court of Appeal found in favour of the Crown, saying the lower court judge had miscalculated the total delay in the case. “There was no unreasonable delay,” Justice Michal Fairburn wrote in a decision agreed to by fellow justices Sarah Pepall and Robert Sharpe.

Lonsbary and Jurkus were on duty the night that inmate Anthony George beat Kargus to death in a jailhouse shower stall. Kargus screamed for help, but guards did not respond until next morning.