Judge Hands Lighter Sentence to BC Indigenous Man for Assaults on Toddler, Citing ‘Colonialization’

A gavel sits on a desk in Ottawa, Feb. 13, 2019. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

An indigenous man in B.C. received a lighter sentence than the Crown had sought for two assaults on his girlfriend’s two-year-old child last year, with the judge citing the effects of “colonialization” as one of the mitigating factors.

In her April 7 sentencing decision, B.C. Provincial Court Judge Tamera Golinsky sentenced the 33-year-old man to two concurrent sentences of six months in jail after he acknowledged choking and kicking his girlfriend’s then-28-month-old child in two assaults captured on a ‘nanny cam’ in the toddler’s bedroom.

The Crown had been seeking one year in jail, and defence lawyers were asking for a conditional sentence of two years less a day, to be served in the community.

The man is referred to only by the initials K.J.M. due to a publication ban meant to protect the identity of the child victim.

Though describing the 2025 assaults as “serious and deliberate acts of violence,” that would have an “inevitable” effect on the child, the judge cited K.J.M.’s history of substance abuse, a traumatic brain injury (TBI) sustained in a 2013 ATV accident, and the effects of “colonialization” as mitigating factors in her sentencing decision.

Other mitigating factors included that K.J.M. had no criminal record and was remorseful for his actions.

The judge noted that K.J.M. didn’t have a “traditional upbringing,” lacks indigenous status, and wasn’t impacted by government policies such as residential schools, nor was his family. However, she wrote that “even the dissociation with one’s past and cultural heritage is a negative consequence of colonialization.”

According to a psychiatric report on K.J.M., his violent actions were partly fuelled by “substance use, poor stress and coping, and his TBI.” However, the judge found that the traumatic brain injury was not a primary factor in causing the assaults, nor was his use of cocaine, since he wasn’t on drugs at the time of the assaults and “knew his rising frustrations and resulting actions were wrong.”

The attacks occurred in June of 2025 when K.J.M. had been living with the woman and her child for roughly a year. K.J.M. described the relationship with the woman as “awful,” saying she had cheated on him and that he felt he was being financially exploited and used as a child care provider.

K.J.M. also said the toddler was “difficult” and would attack his sibling. K.J.M. also said the child would smear his feces on the wall, often without consequences from his mother. K.J.M. and his girlfriend would lock the child in his bedroom so he wouldn’t cause trouble and expressed no “concern with locking a toddler in a room for extended periods of time while unsupervised by an adult,” according to court reports.

The court found that in the first attack on June 13, 2025, K.J.M. went into the child’s bedroom, hit him with the door then kicked and choked the toddler on the floor while the child screamed. In the second assault two days later, the court found K.J.M. kicked the child “once in the face or forehead with his bare foot” and then left the bedroom.

The attacks were revealed after the child’s mother noticed an injury on her child and looked at the nanny cam footage. She then contacted authorities.

The Crown argued that the child, who is now four, had not suffered “serious long-term” harm from the attacks, which Golinsky attributed to “good fortune.”

For his part, K.J.M. pleaded guilty to the attacks but said the child was “freaking out” before the assaults occurred, a claim Golinsky rejected as untrue, saying the child “was doing neither in the seconds leading up to either of the assaults.”

K.J.M.’s half-year jail sentence will be followed by 18 months of probation with strict conditions and mandatory counselling. He must also give a DNA sample and submit to a 15-year firearm ban.