NANAIMO — A former Nanaimo bouncer has been sentenced to 12 months in jail for causing bodily harm to a young man who died at a Nanaimo nightclub in 2006.
Buddha Gains pleaded guilty to the charge of assault causing bodily harm at an earlier court appearance. He was ordered to give a sample of his DNA and is prohibited from possessing firearms for 10 years.
Gains was charged following an altercation in Nanaimo’s now-closed Grizzly B’ar during the early hours of Oct. 21, 2006.
A fight broke out when Gabriola resident Michael Brophy, 20, grabbed a pool ball off a nearby table. That action prompted another bar patron, Timothy Maybin, to grab Brophy and begin hitting him repeatedly in the head. Maybin’s older brother, Matthew Maybin, briefly joined in on the assault, which ended with Brophy lying face-down and unconscious on a pool table.
Gains, a bouncer at the bar, came over to where Brophy was lying and delivered a single blow to the side of Brophy’s head. He and other bouncers then carried Brophy outside the bar and someone called an ambulance.
Brophy died from a brain hemorrhage in hospital that afternoon.
Timothy Maybin received a two-year conditional sentence after pleading guilty to manslaughter last month. Matthew Maybin received an eight-month conditional sentence after pleading guilty to assault causing bodily harm.
In 2008, Gains and the Maybin brothers were acquitted of manslaughter after the trial judge ruled there was reasonable doubt as to which blow had proved fatal.
In 2010, however, the B.C. Court of Appeal ordered a new trial for each of the Maybins.
Gains’s acquittal was upheld. He later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of assault causing bodily harm.
Justice Catherine Bruce’s judgment Monday was well received by the Crown prosecutor and Gains’s lawyer, Peter Hertzberg.
Crown prosecutor David Kidd said Bruce’s ruling included a “careful analysis” of the aggravating and mitigating factors in the case. “But at the end of the day, she found that because of Mr. Gains’s specialized position as a trained bouncer, he overreacted to the situation that occurred on that night,” he said.
Hertzberg said his client, who runs an organic farm in the B.C. Interior, is ready to serve his sentence and move on.
“Mr. Gains is not pleased with the fact that he’s going to jail, but he has accepted the judgment and sees today as the first day to the rest of his life,” Hertzberg said.
Hertzberg said Bruce’s judgment “clearly acknowledged” Gains’s remorse for his actions as well as the number of years both Gains’s and Brophy’s family have awaited closure on the matter.
