By Canadian Press

Teen apologizes to victim’s family for role in fatal beating posted online

Jun 26, 2018 | 4:15 PM

WINNIPEG — A Manitoba teenager who took part in a fatal beating that was filmed and shared online has told the victim’s mother she will never be at peace with herself.

“I cannot imagine how broken your world must be without her,” the girl told her sentencing hearing in Winnipeg on Tuesday.

The teen, who cannot be named, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in January in the death of 19-year-old Serena McKay.

McKay’s body was found on the Sagkeeng First Nation in April 2017. Two teenage girls, who were 16 and 17 at the time, were arrested after online videos surfaced showing McKay being brutally beaten and begging her attackers to stop.

The Crown is seeking an adult sentence of seven years in jail for the younger girl, who is now 17. It argues the videos don’t show an adolescent, but an “adult woman full of rage beating on a helpless victim.”

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Defence lawyer James Wood said an adult sentence would be “completely inappropriate” and is asking for a youth sentence of three years.

Wood said his client has post-traumatic stress disorder from multiple sexual assaults in her youth.

“She had been dealing with unresolved trauma from her past and was using alcohol to cope,” he told court.

She often blacked out and doesn’t remember the night of the brutal beating, he added.

Wood said she has not developed an adult identity, is immature and has the moral capacity of an adolescent.

Court previously heard that there were seven people at a party, including McKay and the two teen girls. There was a verbal fight over alcohol and McKay was kicked out of the party.

Not long after, the teen helped attack McKay who was left outside with debilitating injuries. She died of hypothermia.

McKay’s mother, Delores Daniels, earlier told court that her life has been a nightmare since her daughter’s death.

The teenager apologized to Daniels and the rest of the family for taking “what must have meant the entire world.”

“I looked into your eyes and all I could feel was pain.”

The older girl, who has since turned 18 but can’t be named because she was underage when the beating occurred, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in December. She received a youth sentence of just over three years in jail, followed by two years of community supervision.

The judge is to hand down a sentence Aug. 2.

Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press