Jail guards to stand trial in inmate's death at Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre

Two correctional officers willstand trial on charges offailing to provide the necessaries of life in the death of an inmate in a London, Ont., jail, the Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled.

Monday's decision reverses an earlier decision which dismissed charges against the two guards because too much time had passed since they were charged.

Fighting for her son

"I have nothing but time to fight for my son and for other inmates," said Deb Abrams, the mother of inmate Adam Kargus, who was killed at the jail in October 2013.

"No one should die in a jail, let alone be murdered in jail, be beaten for an hour, his body not found for 13 hours."

Stephen Jurkus and Leslie Lonsbary, who were correctional officers at the Elgin-MiddlesexDetention Centre in London, Ont., were each charged with failing to provide the necessaries of life to Kargus. The 29-year-old Sarnia resident was found beaten to death in a shower stall at the jail on Oct. 31, 2013.

Their charges lingered without resolution until February 2017, when they were stayed because of the delays.

"There is so much more information that the public is not aware ofand, when they go to trial, this information will be brought forward," Abrams said, after learning that the guards will stand trial after all.

In February2018, Crown prosecutors went before the Ontario Court of Appeal to argue that legal errors were made during the earlier ruling, and that exceptional circumstances should be counted against the total length of court proceedings.

The time elapsed sincethe accused were charged was more than the 30 months allowed by the 2016 Supreme Court of Canada ruling, commonly known as the Jordan decision, which calls for dismissal of cases that have been subjectto unreasonable delays.

No guards intervened

In a jail surveillance video from 2013, Anthony George could be seen beating his cellmate Kargus to death and then dragging the body into the shower area.

George entered a surprise guilty plea and in October 2017was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 10 years.

The two guards can still appeal the Ontario Court of Appeal ruling issued today.

But if that happens, that will only bring more awareness to conditions at the jail, Abrams said.

"When nothing is going on , people go about their daily routine and they forget how bad things are at EMDC," she said. "They can appeal, but that will bring awareness againabout how this young man died, and how others are still dying in there.

"[The correctional officers]didn't do their jobs. They didn't do their rounds or they would have found Adam or stopped a beating. He was beaten for over an hour. If they had done their rounds, they could have stopped it," she said.

None of the allegations against the guards hasbeen proven in court.