The man who killed Carlton Leith after a violent assault in the downtown area of Chilliwack just after Christmas 2020 will not be going to jail.
High on the drug GHB, the 42-year-old William Trevor Escott, who is much larger than his victim, punched the 45-year-old, who fell back and cracked his skull, which would later kill him.
“I would like to say sorry to the courts, and to the family for what happened,” Escott told the court after a sentencing hearing on Tuesday (July 19), adding he is still “horrified” by the memories every night.
“Since that time I did what I could to better my life, and I am sorry.”
Escott was originally charged with manslaughter, but Crown counsel Aaron Burns agreed to accept a plea to the lesser included charge of assault causing bodily harm.
READ MORE: Manslaughter charge lowered to assault causing bodily harm for Chilliwack’s William Trevor Escott
Crown counsel and defence filed a joint submission asking the court for a 12-month conditional sentence for Escott, which is essentially house arrest with conditions, followed by three years of probation.
At the conclusion of the morning’s court proceedings on July 19, Judge Peter Whyte said to Leith’s family: “Rarely is there such a colourful description” for a victim of crime, as the one Leith’s family members painted in their victim impact statements.
“I felt the effect he had on your lives.”
Chilliwack RCMP were called to the area of Yale Road and Fletcher Street in the early hours of Dec. 27, 2020 where they found Leith suffering from a serious head injury. He was taken to hospital after the altercation where the back of his skull cracked. Leith died in hospital a few days later.
Submissions from Crown and defence included victim-impact statements from several of his Leith’s family members including his father, his brother, his mother and his daughter’s mother reading her statement.
Leith’s mother, Diane Leith, said all the “what-ifs” still haunt her, in terms of what actions could have saved her son.
“I’m numb,” his mother told the court. For nearly the past year she has been “in a black hole,” where she has felt weak, exhausted, sleep deprived with an inability to focus on anything.
“I want you to understand the depth of my loss,” she said, adding that Carlton was “a joy, a caring, gentle soul” who was dealing with a lifetime sentence of mental illness as someone diagnosed with schizophrenia.
“Carlton always made those around him feel valued and heard,” his mother said.
“Life is about choices. The cost of this one is too high. Carlton is dead.”
She faced Escott to deliver her final thoughts: “A gift may be granted. A chance to do better, be better, live better. Mr. Escott, please, please, choose better.”
His father, Ronald Leith fought through his tears to describe the moment in hospital, when he realized that his son, in a coma from cracking his skull, would not survive the brain injury, although his heart was still beating strong.
“This was most devastating moment in my life,” he said. He appealed to Escott directly in court, asking him to use the time he was given as an opportunity to turn his life around, and “work to become a genuinely good person.”
Crown counsel Aaron Burns said Leith was described by loved ones as a “very caring, lovely man” who on the fateful day in question had a terrible toothache, and was spending time in the downtown core which led him to cross paths with Escott.
They had a verbal confrontation. A punch was thrown.
“Everything about this was horrible and tragic,” he pointed out.
Escott’s criminal activity was characterized as being “based entirely on his use of GHB” an extreme intoxicant, that led him to be known on the street as “Shirtless Trevor.”
But following this incident, Escott entered drug and alcohol recovery and treatment, and has since been gainfully employed.
“He’s done what he could do,” Burns said.
Escott stood in the courtroom to say a few words at the very end of the proceedings.
Leith made the news in 2011 for his role protecting a nurse from an out-of-control psychiatric patient at Abbotsford Regional Hospital. Leith intervened as a man was raining punches down on a nurse who was lying on the floor. Though the man was significantly larger than Leith, he was able to apply a choke hold and hold the man until hospital security arrived.
For his heroism, Leith received a Police Board Commendation from former Abbotsford Mayor George Peary.
RELATED: Manslaughter reduced to assault causing bodily harm
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