EDMONTON Canada Aug 30 2018 —A security guard convicted of stomping a man to death behind the store he was supposed to be protecting has blamed being ‘involuntarily celibate’ for his crimes. He was sentenced to four years in prison by an Edmonton court Wednesday.

“He was frustrated with his lot in life, he was angry at the world,” Justice R. Paul Belzil said before sentencing Sheldon Bentley, 38, to four years in prison for manslaughter and a six-month sentence for robbery to be served concurrently.

Donald Doucette, 51, was passed out in an alcove behind the Lucky 97 supermarket at 10725 97 St. on July 31, 2016, when Bentley — then employed as a security guard by the store — stole $20 from his hand and stomped hard on Doucette’s stomach.

The hard sole of his combat boot “made an audible thump,” Crown prosecutor Kristen Logan said during her closing arguments in Bentley’s trial in June, causing two large tears in the internal soft tissue of his abdomen and massive internal bleeding.

Chief Medical Examiner of Alberta Elizabeth Brooks-Lim testified during Bentley’s trial that Doucette, 37, would have been in significant pain when Bentley and another security guard lifted him to his feet and rested him against a chain-link fence on the opposite side of the alley as two litres of blood pooled in his abdomen.

The average human body, court heard, contains less than five litres of blood.

Brooks-Lim said Doucette would have died within minutes and was likely already dead when two passersby found him unresponsive against the fence.

“My father is an innocent man who did not deserve to die in an alley,” said Tianna Doucette-Moody, Doucette’s daughter, who showed a picture of her father to the judge while delivering her emotional victim-impact statement.

Bentley didn’t look at Doucette-Moody as she described the pain caused to her family by the loss of her father.

According to a Family and Community Services (FACS) assessment filed before his sentencing, Bentley blamed stress from his professional and personal life for his actions that day.

Defence lawyer Amanda Hart-Dowhun described Bentley as a member of the “working poor,” who was living in low-rent accommodations provided by the YMCA in Edmonton at the time of the attack on Doucette.

She said he had grown up abused and was often bullied at school.

Court heard that the only support Bentley has in the community is his mother who wept as he was sentenced, and a letter from Tim Gardner, the program director of Dwayne’s Home — which provides safe housing for the homeless or otherwise hard to house — saying Bentley would be welcome back.

Aside from stress from his job as a security guard, Bentley blamed his behaviour on being an involuntarily celibate, a term — often shortened to “incel” — popularized in online communities for someone unable to secure a sexual relationship.

“I am sickened at who I was,” Bentley said, addressing court and Doucette’s family members, who were gathered in the gallery. He added, “I don’t like what I’ve become. I am very sorry for what I have taken from you.”

In his apology, Bentley brought up his affinity for pop culture and comic-book characters.

Bentley said he would use Captain America’s values to govern his actions going forward, saying the character would have been “ashamed” of his crime.

Belzil acknowledged that while Bentley may have been frustrated by his circumstances, “that does not give anyone licence to impose violence on anyone else.”

He agreed with arguments from the crown prosecutor that Bentley, in his role as a security officer, was in a position of authority and his treatment of Doucette was an “egregious breach” of that authority.

Bentley was sentenced to four years in prison, but with credit for 28 months of pretrial custody, will serve one month and eight years. Bentley will also have to submit a DNA sample to a national database and will be banned from possessing weapons for ten years after his release.

The Star

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