Jail guards to stand trial for alleged role in death of Ontario inmate
TORONTO — Two guards at a London, Ont., jail will have to stand trial for their alleged role in an inmate’s death, Ontario’s top court ruled Monday, reversing an earlier decision to stay charges against the pair due to delayed proceedings.
Corrections officers Leslie Lonsbary and Stephen Jurkus were charged with failing to provide the necessaries of life after 29-year-old Adam Kargus was beaten to death by his cellmate at the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre in October 2013.
A lower court stayed the charges against the two officers in February 2017, ruling that the case against them had eclipsed the 30-month time limit for trials set out by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Crown prosecutors appealed that decision, arguing the judge made errors in her analysis of the time-frame rules, which allow certain types of delays to occur without counting toward the 30-month limit.