Family unhappy with four-year sentence for B.C. drunk driver who killed Mountie
COLWOOD, B.C. — As a judge delivered a four-year prison sentence to the drunk driver who killed Const. Sarah Beckett on Friday, her grieving relatives shook and wept, before handing a letter to Crown counsel expressing their outrage.
Provincial court Judge Ronald Lamperson acknowledged the sentence would seem inadequate to the many people on Vancouver Island who have been touched by the “tragic case.”
“Clearly there is no sentence I can impose that will bring Const. Beckett back or address the pain that her family and friends continue to suffer,” Lamperson told a packed courtroom near Victoria.
But he said he must be guided by prior decisions involving impaired driving causing death in sentencing Kenneth Fenton, 29, who has also been banned from driving or owning a weapon for 10 years.