Lawyer for trucker guilty in woman’s hotel death in Edmonton wants shorter sentence

EDMONTON — The lawyer for an Ontario truck driver who killed a woman in his Edmonton hotel room a decade ago is asking that his client be sentenced to about half the time called for by the Crown.

Dino Bottos told court Bradley Barton, who is 53, should be sentenced to no more than nine years in prison for the manslaughter of Cindy Gladue, a 36-year-old Métis and Cree woman.

The Crown has argued for a tough sentence of 18 to 20 years, because Gladue was vulnerable as an Indigenous woman working in the sex trade. and was killed in an extremely violent way.

Bottos told the second day of a sentencing hearing that Barton should not be sentenced in vengeance for all the systemic inequities Indigenous women face.

Barton was convicted in February for killing Gladue, who bled to death in June 2011 in the bathtub of his room at the Yellowhead Inn.

Medical experts testified she had four times the legal limit of alcohol in her system and bled to death from a severe wound in her vagina.

It was the second trial for Barton. A jury found him not guilty in 2015 of first-degree murder, which sparked rallies and calls for justice for Indigenous women.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 29, 2021.

The Canadian Press

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today