Man gets 12 years for killing girlfriend’s son
A 44-year-old Lachine resident received a sentence of more than 12 years on Friday after a Quebec Superior Court judge determined he is remorseful and had expressed sincere regret for having killed his girlfriend’s adult son in a drunken rage.
Philippe Gloutney was facing the possibility of a lengthier sentence because he also stabbed his girlfriend, Christine Brooks, with the same spear he used to kill her 38-year-old son, Lee-Christopher Larocque, on Nov. 6, 2015. Last week Crown prosecutor Jasmine Guillaume asked that Gloutney be required to serve his sentences for manslaughter and aggravated assault consecutively over 15 years: 12 for manslaughter and three for stabbing Brooks. Guillaume argued that serving the two concurrently would “obscure” what happened to the woman. Brooks suffered permanent damage to her right forearm when Gloutney thrust the homemade spear into it, causing a wound 10 centimetres deep.
Defence lawyer Jean-Louis Poulard argued in favour of concurrent sentences and recommended nine years.
All three parties were heavily intoxicated when Gloutney and the victim began to argue that night.
Justice François Dadour dedicated five pages of his 27-page decision to whether Gloutney should have been required to serve his two sentences — 12½ years for manslaughter and four for aggravated assault — consecutively.
While reading from his decision at the Montreal courthouse Friday morning, Dadour said: “After due consideration of the matter, the direct inferences to be drawn from the facts of this case demonstrate a close link, both spatial, chronological and factual, between what happened to Mr. Larocque and Mrs. Brooks. In less than an hour, in a small apartment, in a longer context of intoxication, Mr. Gloutney’s actions took place against the two victims, in part inside the same room and with the usage of the same weapon.
“Given this factual matrix, the scales of the balance tip in favour of exercising judicial discretion in inflicting concurrent sentences.”
Dadour also noted that Gloutney stopped drinking and began attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings while detained for the homicide.
Guillaume later told reporters she was disappointed that Dadour opted for concurrent sentences but said she was satisfied with the overall sentence.