Penticton woman sentenced to one year in jail, ordered to pay funeral costs in manslaughter case

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The judge nonetheless spent a portion of his 45-minute decision praising Bourque, a licensed cosmetologist, for turning her life around and co-operating with the investigation.

“You are an extremely remorseful young woman with no criminal history who demonstrated a serious lack of judgment and have taken full responsibility for what happened,” noted Weatherill.

Once her jail sentence is complete, Bourque will serve two years’ probation, conditions of which include having no contact with Bourque’s family and reimbursing them $5,400 for his funeral.

There is no mandatory minimum sentence for manslaughter. During the main portion of the hearing Sept. 18, Crown counsel Andrew Vandersluys called for a three-year prison term, while defence counsel Paul Varga suggested a suspended sentence of three years’ probation.

According to circumstances of the case read into the court record at the start of the hearing, Blackmore and Bourque had been dating for about three months when he became ill during spring break 2017.

Blackmore, who was set to graduate from Pen-Hi in a few months, suspected he had bronchitis and didn’t seek medical attention. He instead went to stay with Bourque at her apartment.

Bourque, who became addicted to morphine after a rugby accident in 2014, told police that Blackmore, who was inexperienced with drugs, asked her for a dose to ease his pain, despite having had an adverse reaction to morphine earlier in his life.