Racist verbal attacks worth 15 months in jail

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This article was published 01/03/2025 (398 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG — A Winnipeg man guilty of an “abhorrent” verbal attack on a group of Indigenous people as they prepared to attend the trial of convicted serial killer Jeremy Skibicki has been sentenced to 15 months in jail.

“His words were vile, pointed, specific and racist,” provincial court Judge Julie Frederickson said about 39-year-old Nicholas Delaney, who earlier this week pleaded guilty to two counts of uttering threats in connection to incidents on May 8 and May 11.

Court heard Delaney has schizophrenia and at the time of the incidents had not been taking his medication and was using meth.

Frederickson said she was satisfied Delaney’s disease played little or no role in the racist attacks.

“While I acknowledge his mental health diagnosis, it does not meaningfully mitigate his actions or his degree of responsibility,” Frederickson said.

Delaney’s “words and actions were not delusions or disordered thoughts,” she said. “Having schizophrenia doesn’t explain or excuse the hate-based nature of his comment, nor does it explain the chilling graphic and specific threats made.”

Delaney confronted an Indigenous elder and several other people, including family members of Morgan Harris, one of four women slain by Jeremy Skibicki, outside the convention centre, May 8, 2024.

Prior to the confrontation, the victims were in a courtroom hearing grim and disturbing details about how Skibicki had targeted and killed four vulnerable Indigenous women in a case that attracted international attention.

As per an agreed statement of facts provided to court, several family members and supporters of Skibicki’s victims were sitting at two tables outside the convention centre, preparing to return to court after the lunch break when Delaney sat down at one of the tables and accused a male elder of “asking for money.” The confrontation escalated with Delaney acting in a “threatening manner” toward the elder before others in the group separated him from Delaney.

Supporter Melanie Ross stepped in front of Delaney, becoming his next target, as he threatened to slit her throat, bash her skull in and cut off her hands and feet and turn them into boots.

Delaney challenged everyone to a fight and yelled “white power” before leaving the area.

“The threats he made were abhorrent and antithetical to Canadian beliefs and values,” Frederickson said. “His words were specific, graphic, misogynistic and dehumanizing.”

Delaney was charged with a second count of uttering threats after he was spotted at a Unity Walk event three days later. He was armed with a knife and screamed racial slurs against Black and Indigenous people as he called for their removal “to make the city safe.”

The backdrop of Skibicki’s trial “heightened the degree of harm caused” by Delaney’s racist attack, Frederickson said.

Much of the convention centre confrontation was captured on cellphone video provided to court.

Delaney’s words, tone and body language “were intended to intimidate and threaten,” Frederickson said.

Crown attorney Omar Siddiqui argued sentences at the higher end of the accepted range were justified for each uttering threat charge. He cited a section of the Criminal Code that says a sentence can be increased if a court is satisfied the threat was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race or ethnicity and other factors.

“I am satisfied the Crown has established the comments were motivated by bias prejudice or hate,” Frederickson said. “There is no further explanation for his conduct on separate days directed at different groups of racialized people.”

Delaney apologized to his victims at the conclusion of his sentencing hearing on Monday. Frederickson said Friday she believed Delaney was sincere.

Frederickson credited Delaney the equivalent of 14 months already served for the Unity Walk incident and ordered that he serve another 15 months for the convention centre confrontation, plus two years of supervised probation.

Delaney “knows he scared many people with his comments” and wants to take anger management counselling in jail, defence lawyer Mike Cook said outside court.

» Winnipeg Free Press