By Canadian Press

Quebec Court of Appeal upholds Richard Henry Bain’s sentence in election shooting

Mar 20, 2019 | 12:30 PM

MONTREAL — The sentence given 2012 Quebec election night shooter Richard Henry Bain will remain unchanged, Quebec’s Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday.

Bain was convicted of attacking a Parti Quebecois rally on Sept. 4, 2012, killing lighting technician Denis Blanchette outside the Metropolis nightclub and seriously wounding one of his colleagues, Dave Courage.

The gunfire erupted as PQ leader Pauline Marois was inside delivering a victory speech, and she was forced to flee the stage.

In November 2016, Quebec Superior Court Justice Guy Cournoyer sentenced Bain to life in prison without possibility of parole for 20 years after a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder. He was also found guilty of three counts of attempted murder — of Courage, a provincial police officer and a dozen other stagehands waiting outside the venue for the rally to end.

Bain’s defence argued unsuccessfully that he should be found not criminally responsible for the killing due to his mental state.

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Cournoyer said during sentencing that the political nature of the offences justified the lengthy period before parole eligibility.

“In an uncharacteristic display of planned murderous violence and hatred for those he described as separatists, Mr. Richard Henry Bain attempted to change the results of the election and the course of history,” Cournoyer said.

Bain’s lawyer had sought a reduction that would have allowed Bain to apply for parole after serving 10 years. The Crown countered that parole eligibility should be increased to 25 years.

After hearing arguments last October, a five-judge Court of Appeal panel dismissed the appeals of both the Crown and the defence, arriving at the decision through different reasoning. Two judges on the panel said they didn’t have enough information to modify the sentence but made clear it was “not manifestly unfit … in view of the gravity of the offences.”

The other three judges ruled the criteria needed to reduce or increase parole eligibility were not met.

“In this case the 20-year period of ineligibility for parole has not been shown to deviate from the proper sentencing range in light of the circumstances of the offence,” the court ruled. “Moreover, it has not been shown that the sentencing judge committed an error of law or principle that had an impact on the sentence in light of the gravity of the crime and (Mr. Bain’s) degree of responsibility.”

Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press