A man who savagely beat his 74-year-old wife to death in the context of repeated domestic violence got away with a lenient sentence of 10 and a half years in prison on Monday. The feminicide committed by Nathaniel Albert would have deserved more than 12 years of imprisonment, however insisted the judge.
Posted at 1:50 p.m.
“The gap is about two years. But when one evaluates all the facts and circumstances, one must conclude that this suggestion is not dramatically inadequate. I will endorse the joint suggestion, ”concluded Judge François Dadour Monday at the Laval courthouse.
Crown prosecutors M.e Jonathan Rabchuk and M.e Steve D. Fontaine and defense attorney Me Steeve Rancourt had suggested a 10-and-a-half-year prison sentence when the 60-year-old pleaded guilty to manslaughter last month. He was charged with the second degree murder of Françoise Côté.
Even if he wanted to impose a harsher sentence, Judge Dadour had his hands tied by the joint suggestion of the lawyers. In the Cook case in 2016, the Supreme Court set the bar very high for a judge to refuse a joint sentencing suggestion. This must “bring the administration of justice into disrepute or [être] contrary to the public interest”. In practice, it has become exceptional for a judge to deviate from such a proposal.
In the eyes of Judge Dadour, the manslaughter committed by Nathaniel Albert on December 4, 2020 was a “near-murder” and therefore should be punished more severely than what the lawyers suggested. The circumstances of the death of Françoise Côté indeed show a feminicide of rare violence.
” [Il a] beat Françoise Côté intensively and abandoned her to die slowly while he went to get dinner,” summed up Judge Dadour.
The 74-year-old woman had suffered real ordeal: a dozen broken ribs, internal injuries, numerous cuts on her body and a very serious burn on her ear. Some of his wounds were healing and therefore dated back several weeks or even months. Several scars scarred his body.
Moreover, on the day of the tragedy, Nathaniel Albert was not allowed to be in the presence of his wife due to a court order. He was indeed accused of having beaten his wife earlier in 2020. “You don’t know what’s going on in my head”, he had launched to his wife by hitting her. He then destroyed the phone, while she tried to call the police.
The context of domestic violence is an aggravating factor of “considerable importance” in this case, said Judge Dadour. Moreover, the innumerable injuries and their seriousness demonstrate the “cruelty” of the accused. He also completely ignored the conditions of the court by returning to live with his victim.
As mitigating factors, only the lack of a criminal record of the accused and his admission of guilt were retained by the judge. The defense had also pointed out that Nathaniel Albert, a Canadian permanent resident, would likely be deported from the country at the end of his sentence.
Certain “weaknesses” in the evidence prompted the Crown to make this common suggestion. According to the prosecution, the cause of death was “not crystal clear”. “Is it the neck injury? Is it the broken ribs? Is it a combination of all that? “, had pleaded Me Rabchuk.
Moreover, there were no eyewitnesses to the crime. It would also have been difficult to demonstrate Nathaniel Albert’s intention to kill his wife as part of the murder count since the defendant had gone out to buy fish at the grocery store before returning home to call 9-1-1. .
However, Justice Dadour did not note any “particular weaknesses” in the Crown’s evidence. “The extent of the victim’s injuries could have led to the conclusion that the accused had caused injuries knowing that they could cause death,” said the judge.