Saint John court hears about Karrson Bennett's aggravated assault on another toddler
WARNING: This story contains graphic content some readers may find disturbing.
Day 3 of a sentencing hearing for Karrson Bennett heard details of his previous conviction for aggravated assault on another child — this one a girl under two years old.
Crown prosecutor Elaina Campbell told the court the girl's mother started dating Bennett in March 2017, when the daughter was only 12 months old.
By the summer, he was abusing her, according to details revealed in court in 2018, when Bennett pleaded guilty to aggravated assault. He was originally charged with attempted murder.
Bennett was sentenced in January 2019 to three years in prison, which was to be followed by 36 months of supervised probation.
Pleaded guilty
He was still on that probation order when he was charged with the second-degree murder of a two-year-old boy by pushing a Ping-Pong ball into the boy's throat.
Bennett pleaded guilty to that charge on Monday, on what was to be the first day of a five-week jury trial.
The Crown has asked Justice Kathryn Gregory to consider the previous incident as an aggravating factor and a reason to raise Bennett's parole eligibility above the 10-year minimum for second-degree murder.
On Friday, Campbell told the court that Bennett began dating the 16-year-old mother of the little girl in the first incident when she was in a vulnerable state.
She said the mother was "an emotionally dependent person," who had been in an abusive relationship with the baby's father.
Campbell said Bennett admitted to the teenager that he had been physically abusing her daughter.
She said the mother took steps to limit Bennett's time alone with the toddler, but when she started working at a fast food restaurant, Bennett had unfettered access to the little girl and the abuse continued.
Campbell said the mother "wanted to believe he was not the type of person to abuse her child."
At his sentencing in that case, Bennett admitted to details of the abuse, including holding his hand over the girl's face until she turned purple and had to be revived.
On another occasion, he stuffed her into a duffel bag, threw her in a closet and went out for a cigarette.
The Crown has also made it clear that it wants the court to consider as an aggravating factor the amount of force it would have taken to push a Ping-Pong type ball into a two-year-old's throat.
Earlier this week, the court heard from several first responders about the amount of force and effort it took to remove the ball.
Tried to tamper with evidence
The hearing isn't scheduled to resume until next Thursday, when it will hear from Dr. Gerard Corsten, a pediatric otolaryngologist at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax. Corsten is expected to testify about how difficult it would be for a toddler to put a Ping-Pong type ball in his mouth and swallow it.
A third aggravating factor alleged by the Crown is that Bennett tried to lie and tamper with evidence in an effort to make it look like the boy had swallowed the ball accidentally.
He claimed to have sent a picture to the boy's mother showing him with a Ping-Pong ball in his mouth a few hours before the incident.
On Thursday, the mother testified that she hadn't received any such picture or video.
On Friday, Det.-Const. Ryan Richardson testified that Saint John police investigators examined cellphones belonging to Bennett and the boy's mother.
He said there is only one data exchange between Bennett and the mother that they were unable to retrieve — indicating that it was either a picture or video — around suppertime on Sept. 18, 2021.
Richardson said Bennett's phone contained a video saved around that time, and a picture of the boy eating, but neither showed the boy with a Ping-Pong ball, as he had told police.
Another officer testified about the condition of a Ping-Pong ball Bennett handed him within minutes of the boy being rushed to the Saint John Regional Hospital.
Bennett told the officer the boy had put that ball into his mouth earlier that evening and that the ball had the toddler's teeth marks on it.
The court heard that an expert has determined that none of the marks were caused by a toddler's teeth.
