A man in British Columbia has been sentenced to five years in prison for manslaughter in the death of an off-duty Abbotsford police officer. The prosecutor says that Alex Willness received 405 days’ credit for time spent in pre-sentence custody and has been ordered to serve the remaining nearly four years in prison. The officer, 55-year-old Constable Allan Young, died a few days after he was involved in an altercation while visiting Nelson, B.C. Eight months later, Mr. Willness, a resident of Castlegar, B.C., was charged in connection with the incident.
Const. Young, who moved to Canada from Scotland in 1997, spent four years with the Toronto Police Service before joining Abbotsford police in 2004. The Abbotsford Police Department released a statement calling Const. Young’s death “senseless and unnecessary” but expressing satisfaction with the conviction. The statement also noted that nothing will bring Const. Young back, and that he and his family remain in their thoughts and hearts.
The related stories section below the content directly links to other occurrences involving police officers’ deaths, while the main content in the post deals with this specific case.