On April 29th I asked the question

“Will the coronavirus pandemic alter the Supreme Court’s interpretation of its landmark ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ ruling in R. v. Jordan?”

I then said a series of upcoming assault and murder trials placed in limbo by COVID-19 meant we would likely find out, since the core of the Jordan decision is our Charter section 11(b) right to a trial “within a reasonable time.”

Thankfully, one of the cases I cited in that article is no longer in danger of being tossed out as the offender pleaded guilty to three of the four charges against him.

A Violent Criminal History

On May 3, 2019, 21-year-old Thomas Kruger-Allen allegedly beat Bradley Eliason so brutally it still took over 50 staples to hold his scalp together months after the attack.

Bradley Eliason and some friends were on the beach in Penticton when they witnessed a drunken Thomas Kruger-Allen and another drunk adult man harassing a small group of young people.

After one of the men grabbed a young woman Eliason attempted to intervene. Both aggressors turned on Eliason and almost beat him to death as bystanders, including the young woman he tried to help, watched in horror.

Bradley Eliason was placed in a medically-induced coma for three weeks and doctors required 56 stitches to close the wound to his skull.

Kruger-Allen was arrested and charged with aggravated assault, breach of conditions of release, assault, and one count of sexual assault.

The only good news I’ve read about this case came the other day.

CastaNet reports that on June 8, 2020,  Thomas Kruger-Allen pleaded guilty to three of the four charges against him.

Kruger-Allen entered his guilty pleas to three of four charges laid against him for the May 3 incident: one of aggravated assault, and two of assault, according to BC Prosecution Service communications counsel Dan McLaughlin. No plea was entered for a fourth charge of sexual assault.

A Broken Record

I feel like a broken record saying it, but Thomas Kruger-Allen was already on bail for another unprovoked attack that sent a man to hospital in 2017, for which this violent young man received a conditional sentence of four months and a whopping 18 months probation.

On October 19, 2019, Kruger-Allen allegedly beat up another person while he was out on bail for the assault on Bradley Eliason. Kruger-Allen is now facing seven additional charges, including two counts of assault causing bodily harm, break and enter and uttering threats.

The first big question is why was Thomas Kruger-Allen released on bail after such a brutal assault outside a nightclub?

The second big question is why was Thomas Kruger-Allen released on bail again, after almost beating Bradley Eliason to death?

This is a dangerous, violent young man who clearly will not stop hurting people of his own accord, and each time he was released on bail he assaulted someone else.

There is one upside to Kruger-Allen’s third set of assault charges. A judge finally ordered this violent offender held without bail at Okanagan Correctional Centre where he will remain until he is sentenced for the assault on Bradley Eliason.

Hopefully at that time the judge will remove this threat from society for a long time, otherwise the odds are far too high someone else will pay the price for judicial leniency, perhaps with their life.