Sukhvir Singh Badhesa beat his wife with a USB cable and then kicked his mother in the head after she tried to intervene. His mother died of her injuries. Badhesa pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
SURREY – An Indo-Canadian man from Surrey who whipped his wife with a USB cable then beat his mother to death when she tried to intervene has been sentenced to 11½ years in prison.
Provincial court judge Alexander Wolf noted that Sukhvir Singh Badhesa’s two young children witnessed the whole thing, reported CBC News.
Badhesa, 39, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but the Crown argued the “act of killing his mother is close to the ‘near murder’ side of culpability.”
Wolf gave Badhesa 10 years for the death of his mother — two less than the Crown wanted. But to reflect the seriousness of domestic abuse, Wolf also handed down an 18-month sentence for Badhesa’s assault on his wife; Crown had asked for a year.
The sentences are to be served consecutively.
The killing occurred in March 2016, after Badhesa, who has a history of depression, had been drinking and smoking opium for up to four days.
Wolf said the tragedy highlights the issues of mental illness and substance abuse that are plaguing the justice system.
“It is my experience that many, if not most, crimes of violence in our court system have been committed while a person was under the influence of alcohol,” he said.
“We must actively take steps to do anything we can to support professional, medical and mental-health interventions. Failing to provide for those that suffer from mental illness will certainly lead to more unimaginable tragedies.”
Badhesa lived with his 35-year-old wife and their two daughters, who were aged seven and one at the time of the attacks. His 61-year-old mother had come to Canada to live with them a little more than a year earlier.
