Victim was beaten, terrorized, jury heard
Jan 23, 2010 - 04:30 AM
By Jeff Mitchell
DURHAM -- Ontario's top court has upheld the conviction of two Ajax men sentenced to lengthy jail terms for a 2005 home invasion in which a helpless victim was assaulted and terrorized.
The decision announced Wednesday by the Court of Appeal means Jermaine Hylton, 24, and 29-year-old Kevin Harris, both of Ajax, will not be granted a new trial. They were convicted by a jury sitting in Whitby in 2007.
Both men were sentenced to seven years by Superior Court Justice Myrna Lack after a sentencing hearing in the fall of 2007, at which both men made tearful pleas for mercy, claiming they'd turned their lives around.
In an appeal heard earlier this month in Toronto, lawyers for Mr. Hylton and Mr. Harris argued Justice Lack had made errors in instructions to the jury that convicted the men. But a panel of appeal court justices found no errors and ruled the convictions should be upheld.
At the original trial, jurors heard Mr. Hylton and Mr. Harris entered a home on Valley Ridge Crescent in Pickering at about 4 a.m. on July 26, 2005 by removing a basement window. They ambushed a 36-year-old man as he lay sleeping, tying him up and wrapping his head in duct tape. The victim was bashed in the head with a hatchet during the ordeal, jurors heard.
The bandits fled with property including the victim's car; they were busted by Durham police in September of 2005 when they crashed a stolen car in Pickering.
Mr. Harris was later implicated in other home invasions, including an incident in April of 2006 in York Region when police shot and killed Shelton McKenzie, 21, of Ajax.
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