Photo: File photo

A Kelowna man had his sentence reduced after a judge found it didn't take into account his Metis background. 

A Kelowna man convicted of stabbing a fellow drug dealer in the neck and forcing him to steal a TV to repay a debt has successfully appealed the length of his sentence, after the appeals judge found the original sentence didn't take into account the man's Metis background.

Jordy Moyan, 30, was sentenced to six years and nine months on March 10, 2016, for an aggravated assault he committed on June 1, 2015.

“The appellant stabbed a fellow drug trafficker in the lung with a knife to settle a debt and watched as associates kicked the victim on the ground,” the original sentencing judge said. “The victim’s wound was duct taped, he was given heroin and taken to a store by the appellant and his associates, and instructed to steal a television but was unable to do so. When the victim’s perilous situation became clear to the wrongdoers, they dropped him off at Kelowna General Hospital and left.”

A doctor testified at the trial that the stab wound would have killed the victim, had he not been treated.

Prior to sentencing, the judge called Moyan's pre-sentence report “one of the two or three most depressing" he had read in 25 years as a judge, and that “violence and criminality ruled (Moyan's) life from the moment he was born.”

He has upwards of 60 criminal convictions, dating back to 2001, when he was just 14 years old. Moyan also suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome.

The sentencing judge took Moyan's aboriginal background into account, known as Gladue sentencing principles, but said “it is not an invisible shield of protection, and every case has to be dealt with (on) its merits.”

Justice Peter Willcock, the B.C. Court of Appeals judge, says the report shows Moyan and his family have been “indelibly impacted by colonial policies of disenfranchisement.”

“That evidence, in my view, bears upon the culpability of the offender; it sheds light on his level of moral blameworthiness,” Justice Willcock wrote.

Willcock changed Moyan's sentence to five years, minus time served prior to sentencing, for a total of three years, 313 days additional time.