Serial killer Dellen Millard has been given a one-year sentence for his role in a stabbing at the prison.
The 12 months will be served concurrently with the three first degree murder convictions he is already serving for the murders of his father Wayne Millard, Tim Bosma of Hamilton and Laura Babcock of Toronto.
Millard was involved in a prison fight in July 2021 and was charged with assault causing bodily harm along with a man named Clayton Sumner.
The court heard stabbing left inmate Sean Trites with his shirt ripped and blood-soaked, lacerations to his neck and left shoulder, and a stab wound to his abdomen.
A doctor who saw Trites the next day and reopened his chest to treat new bleeding around his heart testified that the injury was potentially life-threatening, Judge Geoffrey Griffin told the court.
Crown lawyer Tim Kavanagh called for a four-year prison sentence, pointing to Millard’s first-degree murder charges and describing him as the “worst offender a court could face”.
Millard represented himself in the case. He appeared on video, his arms covered in tattoos and his brown hair short except for a long, thin braid that hung over his shoulder.
Griffin summarized Millard’s comments, in which the accused said the Crown based its four-year estimate on his “prominence” and that it was difficult to propose a sentence for a crime of which he was not guilty.
During the trial, Millard called several witnesses, including Trites, who, according to the judge, testified that Millard had saved his life that day.
However, in his decision shared in early March, Griffin noted that Trites was very reluctant to testify, initially refusing to leave his cell and would not submit to cross-examination by the Crown.
Surveillance video showed attack
The judge also referred to prison surveillance video, which captured much of the violent portion of the fight, and said it was clear Millard was more than an observer, even though Sumner was the person holding the shaft.
The video shows Millard putting his arm on Trites’ back and pushing him toward Sumner, before using both arms and getting behind him so he couldn’t get away, according to Griffin.
“If someone is stabbed, the idea that you would pull that person in a way that gives the attacker more access to get to that person, even for a short period of time, is a serious problem that needs to be denounced.” , the judge said in his ruling on Thursday.
Sumner, who pleaded guilty, also received a 12-month sentence, a factor Griffin said he considers in determining a fair sentence for Millard.
Millard has also been given a lifetime gun ban and will be required to provide a DNA sample.
Millard compared stabbing to a dogfight
The judge previously rejected motions Millard filed in early June calling for a mistrial and for the verdict to be quashed and the case reopened for the defense.
Among the materials he submitted was a letter from Trites, signed “your boy, Slick,” stating that the court was “biased” against him, the judge said.
Griffin also referred to what he described as an “imaginative” document written by Millard which gives a detailed account of the stabbing, comparing it to a dogfight where the other two men “danced like tortured dogs in the pit”, as he tried to break it.
Griffin likened Millard’s materials to a “do-over”.
“Mr. Millard, in my opinion, has to live with the consequences of his decision not to testify,” he said.
Millard said Thursday he has “limited experience” in the legal system and plans to appeal the outcome if his attempt to reopen the trial is unsuccessful.
