Youth avoids jail in rock-dropping death

A 19-year-old whose grad-night prank gone awry resulted in the death of an Edmonton bus driver four years ago has been spared jail time.

The teen, who was 15 at the time, dropped a boulder the size of a basketball over a pedestrian bridge, crashing through the windshield of a passing bus and killing driver Robert Stanley who was on his way home.

He was sentenced Thursday to six months deferred custody followed by six months of probation. As a result, he will be under house arrest and will have to do community service. The Stanley family will likely have some input into the kind of volunteer work he will do.

Although he is now 19, he was sentenced as a youth. His name cannot be published because of his age at the time of the offence.

The Crown had asked for time in jail for manslaughter. The maximum sentence for a youth on that charge is two years.

But the dead man's family says they don't want him to go to jail.

"He's not a bad person," one of Stanley's sons said earlier at a sentencing hearing. "He's just a stupid kid, and it would wreck him."

The defence called for no jail time but said he should serve some house arrest.

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