Man who threatened victim supporters during Winnipeg serial killer trial deserves jail: lawyers

February 25, 2025 Canuck

A verbal attack near Winnipeg’s courthouse during the trial of a serial killer last year that involved victim family members, and “gory,” violent threats against one of their supporters should result in jail time, Crown prosecutors and the defendant’s lawyer agreed Monday.

However, they diverged on whether Nicholas Delaney, 39, should serve more time than he already has after pleading guilty to uttering threats in connection with the May 2024 incident where Delaney accosted a group of people sitting outside the downtown RBC Convention Centre who were about to head back to court for the trial of Jeremy Skibicki.

That group included a daughter of Morgan Harris, one of four women Skibicki was later convicted of murdering. Crown attorney Omar Siddiqui said things got “heated” when Delaney accused an elder in the group of asking for money, then began acting in a “threatening manner” toward the man.

A woman who tried to intervene by putting herself in front of Delaney was then subjected to violent threats, including that Delaney would mutilate her and turn her body parts into boots.

“The idea of making furniture or boots out of people links to something in our history, as your honour is fully aware. It’s what the Nazis did,” Siddiqui said, adding Delaney challenged everyone in the group to a fight before yelling, “white power.”

Delaney also pleaded guilty to uttering threats in connection with a separate incident days later, where court heard he was carrying a knife and screaming racial slurs at a Unity Walk march, saying “we need to get rid of” Black and Indigenous people to make Winnipeg safe, Siddiqui said.

At the time, court heard Delaney was using methamphetamine and not taking his schizophrenia medication.

Siddiqui asked for a sentence of 18 months for the first incident, and to time already served in custody — just shy of 14 months with enhanced credit — for the second, followed by three years of probation.

Mental health ‘prominent factor’

Defence lawyer Mike Cook said while Delaney’s actions “deserve jail,” he should be sentenced to the time he’s already served in custody, followed by two years of supervised probation. Cook said while he didn’t explore a defence of not criminally responsible, Delaney’s mental health was a “very prominent factor” in the incident.

“At times, he’s a wonderful, loving, caring, funny man and gets along with the world, and there’s times where he’s anything but that,” Cook said, adding Delaney is under the supervision of the public guardian and trustee and has no violent offences in his criminal record.

“I think if he was on his medication, we never would have had this scenario, we would not be sitting in a courtroom today to deal with him.”

When asked by police what happened during the convention centre incident, Delaney told them he was attacked by seven “aboriginal” people, saying he offered them a job and “they said, ‘No, we don’t work. We want free money,” Siddiqui said.

He also made comments about people “protesting for money outside the legislature” in remarks the prosecutor said were based on racist stereotypes.

The prosecutor argued the sentence should be on the higher end because of evidence the threats were motivated by hate and involved vulnerable victims, and because of the need to send a message that courts won’t tolerate such behaviour.

Siddiqui also noted that on the day the family members and supporters were accosted, they had just heard graphic details in court about how Skibicki preyed on his victims, how he killed them and what he did to their remains.

Sense of safety ‘shattered’

The woman Delaney threatened said in a victim impact statement read by Siddiqui she was “deeply affected” by Delaney’s threats to do “gory, unfathomable things” to her, describing how her sense of safety was “shattered.”

She said she hopes the justice system holds Delaney accountable, while giving him “the appropriate resources to deal with his mental health issues and aggression that led to the racial profiling and attack against me.”

Three letters of reference were filed on Delaney’s behalf, including one from his sister, who apologized for his “extremely shocking” behaviour.

Court heard in a pre-sentence report, Delaney said “he had a lot going on in his life and he’s unsure why he acted the way he did during the offence.”

“I’m left with the conclusion that this is someone who just doesn’t care,” Siddiqui said, adding he was the Crown attorney responsible for Manitoba’s mental health court for almost three years, and doesn’t recall seeing anyone expressing the kinds of ideas Delaney had.

When given the chance to speak in court, Delaney apologized for what happened.

“I was off my medication, I was on meth, I was in a wrong state of mind,” he said.

Frederickson will render her decision Friday, saying it’s a “somewhat more challenging” than usual because of Delaney’s personal circumstances “and how he came to be involved in the situation.”

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