A 33-year-old male was sentenced to six months in jail after pleading guilty to choking and kicking a child in the face.
In an April 7 sentencing verdict, Provincial Court Judge Tamera Golinsky said the offender, known by the initials K.J.M. due to a publication ban, assaulted the 28-month-old boy while living with the child’s mother last June and acting as caregiver and step-parent.
The Crown wanted a year in jail plus probation, while K.J.M.’s lawyer asked for a conditional sentence order of two years less a day, to be served in the community.
Golinsky’s decision, which withheld the place of the hearing, said the mother discovered the assaults when she noticed a scrape on her son’s shoulder and reviewed the nanny cam footage.
In the first incident, on June 13, 2025, K.J.M. opened a door, stepped into the room and used his foot to kick and move the child away from the door. He pushed his hand onto the child’s neck, pressing him into the carpet.
“The child can be heard crying while crawling back to sit at the closed door,” Golinsky said. “The video ends there.”
Two days later, on June 15, 2025, the child was seated alone on a bed, dressed in a diaper and crying.
“When K.J.M. opened the door, the toddler flinched,” Golinsky said. “K.J.M. took a couple steps into the room and up 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.”
K.J.M. began using cocaine at age 28 due to peer pressure and used crack cocaine when he was 30.
He attended a Prince George treatment centre from December 2021 to January 2022 and moved to another treatment centre, in the Lower Mainland, in 2022. But he left that facility after a month instead of fulfilling a two-year commitment.
He reverted to drug use when he began a relationship with the victim’s mother in 2023.
“He reports that he last used substances right after these incidents, and his current partner believes he has not been using during their relationship,” Golinsky said.
The judge said mitigating factors include the guilty plea, lack of criminal record, the spontaneous nature of the assaults, K.J.M.’s Indigenous heritage and the legacy of a traumatic brain injury from an ATV crash at age 20.
Golinsky officially sentenced K.J.M. to six months in jail on each charge, but he will serve the sentence concurrently.
