Three years for vicious beating of BU student

A man was sentenced Thursday to three years for his part in a violent robbery near Brandon University that left a woman with a broken jaw and “raised alarms” on the BU campus.

Mackenzie Swain, 19, previously pleaded guilty in Brandon provincial court to the charges of robbery and breaching his probation order.

The Crown asked for a sentence of four years for the robbery and a further 30 days for the breach, while defence argued for a sentence in the range of time served, which is the equivalent of 684 days, to three years.

Defence asked that the 30 days for the breach be served concurrently.

On the evening of Nov. 23, 2024, a Brandon University student took a city bus to campus. Swain and a co-accused, who was 15 years old at the time, were also passengers on the bus.

When the woman got off, they followed her.

The two males attacked and robbed the woman. The 15-year-old admitted to kicking the victim in the head three to five times, and Swain took responsibility for punching her twice.

Swain’s co-accused spent five months in custody before receiving a sentence of two years of probation in May 2025.

“What happened as a result of the robbery was not just a serious injury, but a disfiguring,” Crown attorney Rich Lonstrup told the court.

“She suffered, firstly, a large gaping laceration to her eyelid, she suffered facial bruising, but she also suffered a broken jaw, which required emergency surgery.”

The victim has a visible scar from the surgery, which she is “very self-conscious” of, court heard.

Lonstrup said the internal impacts were even worse.

She is now triggered by nighttime, darkness, riding the bus and walking alone on campus, he said.

The attack impacted the woman’s family, as they were “absolutely devastated and felt helpless,” Lonstrup said.

“It’s important you understand that the ripple effects didn’t stop there. This was a high-profile matter. It caused considerable outrage and upset, not just in the community at large, but within the Brandon University campus,” he said.

The attack “raised alarms” at the university, which has more than 3,000 students enrolled, many of whom live either on or near campus.

BU students and staff protested for better security days after the incident. The university is in the process of conducting a safety audit as a direct result of those calls to action, the Crown said.

The Crown pointed out that it was not a “high yield” robbery, with the males taking roughly five dollars. He said Swain admitted he tried to take her phone and couldn’t get it away from her.

Lonstrup said there are some mitigating factors, including that Swain made a “thorough” confession to police when he was arrested days after the incident, and that he pleaded guilty.

The Crown said despite the confession, Swain initially pleaded not guilty, and the matter was scheduled for trial in November 2025.

Three weeks before the trial was set to start, he pleaded guilty to the charges. While the victim didn’t have to testify, Lonstrup said she had to mentally prepare for trial and attend court meetings.

“We say the aggravating factors here hugely overwhelm the mitigation,” Lonstrup said.

He said it’s aggravating that it was a two-on-one attack on a woman who was in a vulnerable situation riding the bus alone. At some point, Lonstrup said the offenders made the decision to get off the bus at the same time as the woman to pursue her.

Swain was also assessed as a high risk to reoffend.

While Swain’s co-accused was the one who kicked the victim in the head, the Crown said the harm was “eminently foreseeable.”

Defence lawyer Bob Harrison acknowledged the seriousness of the situation but said there are other factors the court needed to consider.

“He tells me that he didn’t set out that night to be robbing anybody,” Harrison said, adding that Swain had been drinking and using cocaine and crystal methamphetamine.

Harrison said his client was on the bus with the victim for about five minutes, and in that time, he and his co-accused made the decision to rob her.

He said Swain has expressed remorse for his actions and said even though he was drunk, it still should never have happened.

Swain did take some time to plead guilty, Harrison said, since he was “terrified” when he heard the sentence the Crown was seeking.

Harrison outlined some of Swain’s personal circumstances.

Swain spent most of his childhood in Child and Family Services care and started using marijuana at six years old, alcohol at 11, cocaine at 13 and crystal methamphetamine at 14.

He said he’s spoken to Swain about attending a long-term treatment program once he’s released from custody.

Judge John Combs said BU has typically been deemed a safe spot for students and staff to congregate, and “that comfort has been severely jeopardized by this incident.”

“The outrage in the community is significant and rightly so as a result of this incident,” he said.

Combs sentenced Swain to three years in custody for the robbery and a further 30 days for the breach, followed by a three-year period of probation.

» sanderson@brandonsun.com