Efforts to collect a drug debt by force landed a 28-year-old former Dalhousie University student in jail for nine months.
Khoda Sullivan pleaded guilty Monday to assault causing bodily harm for beating Duncan Rennie.
Crown lawyer Chris Balison said several people called police after hearing screams on Sept. 5 this year at an apartment on Hilltop Avenue in North Kamloops. The victim was also reported screaming and running down several streets.
One of the two men who beat Rennie uttered “this is a lesson for stealing.”
Police found Rennie at an Esso gas station on Tranquille Road with a black eye and facial swelling. He was also clutching his ribs.
Balison said the swelling was so bad Rennie was slurring his speech.
Sullivan pleaded guilty to the charge, but told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Sheri Donegan that, contrary to facts read by the Crown, he did not use a cane in the beating.
Sullivan’s co-accused, Brett Haynes, has thus far elected to stand trial separately.
The two lawyers presented a joint submission asking for a nine-month jail sentence. Sullivan has a criminal record for violent crime and has served a nine-month jail term in the past.
Defence lawyer Don Campbell said his client wants to put the incident behind him because his common-law girlfriend is due to give birth in January.
Sullivan attended Dalhousie, taking a year of general studies and a year of engineering. But Campbell said his quest to earn money to continue school led him to Alberta’s oilfields, methamphetamine and heroin use.
He said Sullivan is now drug-free.
“He wants to take a structural engineering degree and look after his family.”
Campbell said Sullivan intends to move back to Nova Scotia to be with his spouse as soon as he gets out of jail. He will also be on a one-year probation term.
