When everything is black, it’s natural to want to light a candle in the dark.
So it is with the family of Kimberly Proctor.
It was three years ago this month that the 18-year-old Langford girl was lured to her death by two classmates.
Kruse Wellwood, 16 at the time of the murder, and Cameron Moffat, who was 17, were later sentenced to life with no chance of parole for 10 years.
The case exposed flaws in the way the law treats young offenders, the Proctor family says. That’s why they’re pushing forward with Kimberly’s Law, a collection of reforms they want made in her name.
On Wednesday, Kimberly’s grandmother Linda Proctor and aunt Jo-Anne Landolt went public in a call for support, asking for volunteers to gather names on petitions aimed at provincial and federal politicians.
The petitions can be found at a new website, kimberlyslaw.com. There’s also a Kimberly’s Law page on Facebook.
For the family, it’s about pulling some positive out of all the horror.
“It has given us something to do, to focus on, other than the grieving,” Proctor said. “It has given us a sense of purpose … to take something good from what’s hideous.”
She said this with photos of her granddaughter’s life spread across the coffee table of her living room. There was Kimmy in braids, there she was riding a pony, there she was perched on a tractor. Legal experts warn against reforms that are driven by emotion, but how can anyone stay unemotional about this?
Kimberly’s Law would require provinces to follow B.C.’s lead in implementing protocols to deal with students and other young people who engage in threatening behaviour. (The Sooke School District was one of the first on board after the murder, signing an agreement with the RCMP, Vancouver Island Health Authority, Ministry for Children and Families and others that allows teams of professionals to be called in when kids are red-flagged.)
The proposals would also see all provinces require mandatory treatment of youths who are deemed to need it.
Parents who ignore their troubled children’s problems would be civilly liable for the actions of violent offspring, could be sued for up to $25,000. The idea is to motivate “uninvolved” parents. “We’re not talking about parents who are trying to get help for their kids,” Landolt stressed.
Kimberly’s Law would also toughen federal laws governing young offenders, automatically transferring to adult court murder suspects over age 16. Those who are charged with murder would be housed apart from other juvenile inmates; it’s a bad idea to expose a locked-up 15-year-old to the likes of Moffat and Wellwood, the Proctors say.
They also says it’s misleading to refer to “adult sentencing” of juveniles. Currently, a minor convicted of first-degree murder in adult court is eligible for parole after 10 years — not 25, as is the case with adults. (The maximum murder sentence in youth court is 10 years — six in custody and four under supervision in the community.) Either lengthen eligibility to 25 years or don’t call it adult sentencing, they say.
The proposed reforms cover both punishment and prevention, but Proctor says heading off crime matters most. “If you can prevent it, then you don’t have to punish.”
Averting conflict, smoothing the waters, was important to Kim, her grandmother said. “She didn’t like people being mean to other people.”
Proctor recalled a story of her granddaughter being spotted deep in conversation with two friends. “They were fighting, and I wouldn’t let them go until they worked it out,” Kim later explained. She wanted people to get along.
“That was her downfall,” Proctor said. Kim’s killers lured her to her death with a promise to explain why they had been treating her cruelly.
It’s hard to say what effect the Kimberly’s Law campaign will have. Professionals within the justice system often balk at rules that rob them of the flexibility to apply the law on a case-by-case basis. Ottawa, having just implemented youth-crime reforms that force prosecutors to consider adult sentences for violent offences, is likely done for now. Youth crime isn’t a hot election topic in B.C.
That doesn’t deter Kimberly’s family. Says Landolt: “We can’t just let this go and not do anything about it.”
