Friday, November 25, 2005
Matthew Ramsey
The Province
First, three men killed a man out walking his dogs.
Then two of them conspired to kill a witness to the
murder.
Now the Sikh community is outraged that the trio
have been given sentences of 10, eight and seven years
-- and that two of them could be free within two years
-- after a plea bargain with the Crown.
"I'm not happy with the verdict," said
Balwant Singh Gill, president of the Guru Nanak Sikh
temple in Surrey.
"They should get more. It's nothing.
"They killed a man. They should get life . .
. the whole community is not feeling very well. They
are upset."
Matthew St. Hilaire, his brother Nicholas and friend
Robert Bolton, all in their early 20s, were sentenced
this week in Surrey Provincial Court in the stabbing
death of Ranjit Brar, 25.
Bolton got 10 years, which he will begin serving
after he completes a five-year term on an unrelated
assault.
Matthew St. Hilaire, whose time behind bars since
his arrest in March 2004 was counted as three years,
was sentenced to an additional three years.
Nicholas St. Hilaire's time in custody was also counted
as three years. He got another two years.
The St. Hilaire brothers were also each sentenced
to two years consecutive for conspiring to kill a
witness to the attack. The name of their intended
victim cannot be published.
The St. Hilaires will be eligible for parole in less
than two years after serving one-third of their sentences.
The killers, originally charged with second-degree
murder of Brar, are white.
Their victim was Indo-Canadian.
"The decision to accept the manslaughter pleas
was made after careful consideration," said Crown
spokesman Stan Lowe. "This was a fair, conscientious,
principled resolution to this case."
Brar, who was known as a gentle giant by friends
and co-workers, was walking his dogs in a Surrey park
with his brother Daljit on Jan. 5, 2004.
One of the pit bull puppies ran and sniffed the feet
of a man who accused the brothers of trying to rile
the animals.
The brothers kept walking. A few minutes later they
were confronted by 10 or 15 men near Strawberry Hill
Elementary School.
In an interview with The Province a few days after
the attack, Daljit recalled that moment.
"I said to my brother, 'Run, run,'" he
remembered. But Ranjit, off work with a back injury,
could not keep up.
"Then I looked back and the whole field was
full of people and they were all ganging up on my
brother."
Daljit yelled at the bat-wielding attackers to stop
but the beating continued.
"They took their time. I was yelling at them
to please leave him alone, but they just took their
time and they hit him one more time and slowly walked
away."
Panicked, Daljit ran to his nearby home and got his
car to take his brother to hospital. When he returned
to the park, Ranjit wasn't there.
The Kingsgate Mall security guard, who wanted to
be a police officer, had staggered to a neighbour's
front door, where he lay bleeding from knife wounds.
Ranjit said: "My hands are cold. I am freezing
-- I want a glass of water."
They were the last words Daljit heard his brother
speak. The six-feet-one-inch, 210-pound man died on
the way to hospital.
