The July 23 sentencing of Kenneth Jacob Fenton in a Duncan courthouse to an additional 18 months in jail for impaired driving resulting in bodily harm and failing to stop for police during an incident that occurred May 22, 2016 is a travesty.
Fenton’s recklessness obviously knows no bounds because he was criminally responsible for a crash that claimed the life of West Shore RCMP Const. Sarah Beckett.
Beckett lost her life when her police cruiser was broadsided by Fenton, who was driving a pickup truck in the Goldstream Avenue and Peatt Road intersection in Langford in the early morning hours of April 5, 2016. He later received a mere four years for that offense.
It’s a sign that some serious changes need to be made to our legal system regarding terms of punishment.
Beckett’s husband Brad Aschenbrenner said at the time Fenton was jailed for four years that the sentence did nothing to deter others. He’s right.
Aschenbrenner is now one of the leading crusaders for change in the justice system. Good for him.
Someone needs to start listening to victims and everyday citizens who are calling for stricter penalties.
The latest trend that’s developed and is especially offensive pertains to either “credit for time served” or “getting credit” for pleading guilty and sparing everyone the ordeals of a trial.
There should be no “credit” for offenders. You do the crime, you do the time.
The same thing happened in the case of Travis Fox, who was at the wheel of a vehicle that resulted in the deaths of Saltair’s Paige Whitelaw and friend Carlee De Boer and was found guilty of impaired driving causing death plus four other charges. He received a lesser sentence of three years in jail, in part because he took responsibility and pleaded guilty.
The next thing you know they’ll be giving out rewards points cards to everyone who follows the same plan to spare themselves some jail time. That’s how preposterous court actions are becoming.
