BURSTA B.C. man has been sentenced to six months in jail and 18 months probation for assaulting a toddler by squeezing his neck and kicking him in the face.
Provincial court judge Tamera Golinsky presided over the case. The court has not revealed where in B.C. the hearing was held. The man, identified only as K.J.M., pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting his girlfriend’s 28-month old boy while living with them.
The defence argued for a conditional sentence – house arrest – for two years less a day. Crown opposed house arrest and argued for a year in jail followed by a year of probation.
There is a publication ban on any information that could identify the victim.
Golinsky noted K.J.M. had “helped to care” for the child and his sibling “when the mother was unavailable or even, as it appears from time to time, unwilling. There was a nanny cam set up in the toddler’s bedroom, and the assaults were caught on camera.”
The first assault was on June 13, 2025, with video footage capturing the assault. Wearing only a diaper, the child was lying on the floor of his bedroom, alone in the room, with his face close to the gap under the door, and not making any sounds, when K.J.M. opened the door inward.
The door hit the toddler’s shoulder, Golinsky noted, “rolling him back and away from the door.”
The accused stepped inside and used his foot to “kick and move the child away from the door, rolling him into the centre of the room,” the court heard. “He then bent down and pushed his hand on the front of the child’s neck, pressing him into the carpet. He squeezed the child’s neck for a moment while the child was screaming” and K.J.M. yelled, ‘Get away from the f—-ing door,’ before releasing his grip and leaving the room, closing the door behind him.
“The child can be heard crying while crawling back to sit at the closed door. The video ends there.”
Two days later, on June 15, 2025, video footage captured the second assault with the toddler sitting on a bed, again wearing only a diaper and alone in the room.”
The youngster was crying, the judge noted, “which sounded like a low droning or whining kind of sound.”
The toddler “flinched” when K.J.M. opened the door, then took a couple steps into the room to the bedside.
“He immediately squared his stance and then kicked the child once in the face or forehead with his bare foot, causing the child to fall onto his back. He yelled something at the child, then stormed out of the room and closed the door behind him. The child continued to lie there on his back and can be heard crying until the video ends a few seconds later,” Golinsky noted in her April 7 reasons for sentence.
”I understand the assaults came to the mother’s attention when she observed a scrape injury on her son’s shoulder area and then examined the nanny cam footage. A photo of that longish red scrape was entered as an exhibit. It isn’t certain, but that injury appears consistent with when the child was struck by the door during the first assault.”
The judge noted no victim impact statement was submitted on the child’s behalf and the efforts of an author of a pre-sentence report’s to reach child’s mother weren’t successful.
The accused is 33 years, had no prior criminal record, and began using crack cocaine at age 30. The court heard, according to K.J.M, his relationship with the toddler’s mother was “awful” with them arguing soon after she began living with him.
“There was significant conflict over her infidelity. He felt as though the mother used him to look after her children and support her financially. He said the child was difficult to parent, and the mother would often not do anything when the child or his sister would misbehave,” the judge noted, with K.J.M. apparently becoming “increasingly frustrated with the situation in the weeks preceding the assaults.”
He found it difficult to be around the toddler, the court heard, because the boy reminded him of his mother’s infidelity.
The Crown proceeded by indictment with no minimum sentence for the judge to consider though assault simpliciter carries a maximum sentence of five years.
Golinsky said while she’s aware the “objective of rehabilitation and principle of restraint would likely best be met by a conditional sentence order,” denunciation and deterrence “must remain at the forefront” and these wouldn’t be sufficiently met with house arrest,
“I find that the offences K.J.M. committed are of such gravity, and his moral culpability for these offences so great, that a conditional sentence would not be proportionate and would be inconsistent with the fundamental purpose of principles of sentencing,” Golinsky decided. “I am not ordering a conditional sentence order and I am sending K.J.M. to jail.”
She sentenced him to six months in jail on each count, to be served concurrently (or at the same time), meaning his total jail term is six months.