‘He didn’t deserve this’: Youth sentence handed down in Winnipeg manslaughter trial

Emotions ran high in a Winnipeg courtroom Wednesday as the person convicted of manslaughter in the August 2020 death of Joshua Hansen learned their fate.

Hansen, 29, died after being stabbed through the heart outside the Mount Royal Hotel two years ago. The person charged by Winnipeg police was a youth at the time of the offence and cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

On Wednesday, a judge handed down a three year sentence in addition to time served, which is a maximum youth sentence for manslaughter. The accused is also under a 20-year weapons ban.

The Crown had been seeking an eight year adult sentence.

“We spent the last two years in court and this is what we get – my son deserves more than that,” said Elizabeth Thomas, Hansen’s mother.

“I want justice for Joshua, my son. He was innocent. He didn’t deserve this, at all.”

Hansen’s sister, Alexi Hansen, says the outcome in court Wednesday is opening up old wounds for the family.

“It’s making me relive it all over again,” she said. “I miss my brother, I want him to come home, I just want him to come home and this nightmare to be over.”

Thomas says her son is remembered as a kind, light-hearted, two-spirited hoop dancer.

“He was a very loving, caring, respectful young man. He did not deserve this,” Thomas told Global News.

“He hated violence and he died that way. That’s what makes me so upset, he died in such a violent way and he hated violence.”