Judge says guilty plea saved court from lengthy and challenging trial.
A former Site C construction worker has been sentenced to three years in jail after stabbing his co-worker in the back in 2024.
Stephen Barnes, 36, was sentenced in Fort St. John, B.C., provincial court on Wednesday, for what Associate Chief Judge Paul Dohm called “a senseless, unprovoked, dangerous and callous act.”
Court heard the attack happened Aug. 24, 2024, after a group of workers at the Site C dam got into an argument during a coffee break in the lunchroom of the work camp near Fort St. John.
A foreman intervened, but a subsequent argument broke out between Barnes and another worker, Leo O’Brien.
After the exchange, Barnes picked up a steak knife and stabbed O’Brien once in the back before leaving the scene.
RCMP later arrested Barnes at the camp without incident, while O’Brien was taken to hospital in Edmonton where surgeons removed the knife from his body.
O’Brien was “defenceless, without arm, without any weapon on him, and had his back to the accused," Dohm said.
Dohm said O'Brien was left mostly paralyzed from the waist down, and that he may lose one of his legs.
His life has been “forever changed,” the judge said.
“This is a life altering and serious offence,” Dohm said.
“It's such a very sad and tragic case that such a simple dispute could end up with such harm to an individual who is otherwise in good health.”
The judge noted Barnes had no prior criminal history and that his guilty plea saved the court from a “lengthy” three-week trial that would have had challenges requiring witnesses to fly into Fort St. John from across B.C. and Alberta.
Barnes was given credit for time served, and has 222 days left in his sentence.
He remains in custody in Kamloops, after which he will serve two years probation.
-with files from CBC
Add comment
Comments