NANAIMO — Eight years after 20-year-old Michael Brophy died following a fight in a Nanaimo bar, two men charged in connection with the death have been sentenced.
Brothers Timothy Maybin, 29, and Matthew Maybin, 31, of Nanaimo, were handed conditional sentences in B.C. Supreme Court on Friday by Justice Catherine Bruce.
Timothy Maybin will serve two years less a day for manslaughter, while Matthew Maybin was handed an eight-month conditional sentence for assault causing bodily harm.
Buddha Gains, who pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm in court on Friday, is set to return for sentencing on May 26.
The Maybins’ sentences require the men to remain within their residences at all times, with some exemptions, including going to and from work. Timothy’s sentence includes 50 hours of community service, while Matthew’s includes 20 hours of community service.
The convictions stem from a bar fight during which Brophy was struck repeatedly in the head in the early hours of Oct. 21, 2006, at the now-closed Grizzly B’ar in Nanaimo.
The fight started after Brophy grabbed a pool ball from one of the tables where the Maybins had been playing, an action described by Bruce as a “minor irritant.”
Bruce said Timothy Maybin grabbed Brophy and began repeatedly hitting him in the head. Matthew Maybin briefly joined in on the assault, which ended with Brophy lying face-down and unconscious on the pool table.
Gains, who was working at the bar as a bouncer, then came over and delivered a blow “of considerable force” to the side of Brophy’s head. Gains and other bouncers carried Brophy outside of the bar, where they left him lying unconscious. The incident took about 20 to 30 seconds.
Brophy was taken to hospital in Nanaimo and later transported to Victoria General Hospital. He was taken off life support later that afternoon after suffering a brain hemorrhage.
The Maybin brothers and Gains were charged with manslaughter, but were acquitted in 2008 after Justice Douglas Halfyard ruled there was reasonable doubt as to which blows had proved fatal to Brophy.
The Crown appealed and in 2010 the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled in a split decision that the trial judge had erred in his analysis. A new trial was ordered for the Maybins. Gains’s acquittal was upheld.
In May 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected leave to appeal brought forward by the Maybins, confirming a new trial would take place.
As for Gains, Halfyard concluded in the original trial that although he had been acquitted of manslaughter, the Crown could lay new, lesser charges against him. Crown prosecutor Carmen Rogers said Gains was charged with assault causing bodily harm in June 2012.
In her decision on sentencing the Maybins on Friday, Bruce said: “All the parties acknowledge that from any perspective, this is a tragedy.”
However, Bruce noted the young age of the accused at the time of the crime — Timothy was 20, while Matthew was 23 — as well as the brothers’ lack of a prior criminal record and their remorse. She said the brothers were unlikely to reoffend.
Bruce said Timothy Maybin’s decision to enter a guilty plea to manslaughter was “highly commendable,” noting another trial may have resulted in his acquittal.
“I think the judge got it just right,” said Michael Tammen, counsel for Matthew Maybin, outside the court. “She weighed all the factors and reached a very sound decision. Her comments were poignant.”
Members of Brophy’s family were in court to hear the decision, but declined comment.
However, the court heard victim impact statements from Brophy’s two sisters during Gains’s hearing.
“Life got much harder after Michael died,” Christine Brophy said. “It broke our family into pieces.”
