Man sentenced to prison for manslaughter, but out on appeal

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BRANTFORD – Connor Gibson has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for manslaughter in the death of a man he hit with a two-by-four board.

But Gibson, dressed neatly in a suit and tie in Brantford’s Superior Court of Justice, and his lawyer met again hours later on Thursday in Toronto to arrange bail, preparing to appeal the decision.

“It’s not fair,” said Smith’s step-father, Brian Anderson, outside the courthouse. “He was sentenced to prison and he gets to go to Toronto and get out this afternoon?”

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Gibson was convicted by a Brantford jury of the Sept. 12, 2021 death of the 37-year-old Smith despite his plea of not guilty.

Evidence showed the two met each other by chance after closing hours of a downtown bar and had words on the street.

Gibson said Smith might have had a knife. Assistant Crown attorney Jeff Mazin said Smith followed Gibson home and was “looking for trouble.”

When Smith came onto Gibson’s front porch and refused to leave, Gibson picked up a nearby wooden board and hit Smith in the head.

That fractured Smith’s skull and, after several days in hospital, he died. Charges of aggravated assault that had been laid against Gibson were upgraded to manslaughter.

Outside the courthouse, Smith’s step-father admitted his son was a “scrapper” who often fought, but said he “never used a knife.”

No knife was found by police, although a box-cutter was in a zipped pocket of Smith’s duffel bag that night.

Gibson was provoked, ruled Justice Harrison Arrell, but he had options: Gibson could have backed off, called police, screamed for help, used the board to push Smith away or even struck Smith’s body rather than his head.

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“The jury decided this was not a case of self-defence,” said the judge. “The forceful striking on the side of the head could have no other result than significant injury or death.”

Arrell had to weigh vastly different submissions from the two sides: the Crown asked for five or six years in prison while defence lawyer Stephen Whitzman suggested Gibson could get a suspended or conditional sentence that would keep him out of jail.

After Gibson’s conviction in December, Whitzman said he was shocked at the decision, feeling that Gibson acted to protect himself and had very low “moral culpability.”

At the time of Smith’s death, Gibson was 23 and had struggled with mental health issues since high school. His mother reported he had been hospitalized several times.

Since the incident, Gibson, who has no criminal record, has married and remained sober, said the judge, who received numerous letters of support for Gibson from family, friends and a counsellor.

“There’s been a significant improvement since this offence . . . and clearly there is much positive support from his family.”

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But, said Arrell, Gibson’s “lapse in judgment” resulted in Smith’s death.

As soon as Gibson was sentenced, his lawyer asked to ensure the two-by-four board that killed Smith would be preserved for the Court of Appeal to see.

Whitzman said he believes the jury was wrong to reject Gibson’s self-defence argument and the judge may have erred in saying a conditional sentence wasn’t appropriate for manslaughter in the case.

Outside the court, Smith’s step-father said the sentence made him “very, very happy” but the appeal process was leading to more distress for his family.

SGamble@postmedia.com

@EXPSGamble

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