N.S. homeless man charged in Dartmouth killing got time served last month for assaulting senior: ‘If you’re motivated, you’ll be fine’

A homeless man who got time served last month for beating up a senior citizen in Dartmouth last year is now charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of 27-year-old Benjamin Ward Clattenburg.

Jamie Duckenfield, 33, was arraigned Tuesday in Dartmouth provincial court.

A judge in the same courthouse sentenced Duckenfield, of no fixed address, to about 200 days behind bars last month for assaulting a 65-year-old man on April 25, 2022. The victim lived near a temporary shelter set up in Starr Park in Dartmouth.

The Sept. 6 sentence was deemed time served when the judge factored in Duckenfield’s remand credit. The judge also banned Duckenfield from owning firearms for a decade and gave him 18 months of probation.

Talented martial artist

Clattenburg was a talented martial artist who witnessed the start of the Tantallon wildfire this past spring, when he was working as a roofer.

“That’s weird for him to be stabbed because he’s not that type of fellow,” said Francis Lafitte, his former employer at a roofing company.

“He was a very, very keen kid and a good worker.”

Clattenburg found other work at the shipyard a few months back, he said.

“It was a good job with benefits,” Lafitte said.

He’d heard Clattenburg was killed Monday but had a tough time fathoming it.

‘Solid muscle’

“The funny part is he’s a trained martial artist,” Lafitte said.

“I mean, serious martial artist. He goes across Canada fighting and everything. So, I find it strange. He’s not the type you’d attack. He was five-nine, 200 pounds and he’s solid muscle. So, it’s weird to go after a guy like that. But maybe he picked a fight with the wrong guy.”

Police say they responded to an altercation between the men on Portland Street on Monday at about 1:15 p.m.

“Officers arrived on scene and located a man who had been stabbed,” said a news release from Halifax Regional Police.

“The victim was transported to hospital where he later died.”

Investigators arrested Duckenfield nearby.

Autopsy rules homicide

“The Nova Scotia Medical Examiner Service conducted an autopsy and ruled the manner of death to be a homicide,” according to HRP.

In addition to assaulting a senior, George Dennis Brown, Duckenfield was sentenced last month for shoplifting from Sobeys and for damaging property, a shelter belonging to the organization that helps folks who sleep rough called Out of the Cold. He pleaded guilty to all three charges.

The court heard Brown was expressing his displeasure about a homeless shelter at a park on Prince Albert Road when Duckenfield exited the shelter, charged at Brown and hit him in the head and face several times.

‘I’ll come back and do this again’

Brown suffered a mild concussion, bloody nose, a bloody lip and a large cut above his right eye. After the assault, the court heard, Duckenfield said: “I’ll come back and do this again and pound the shit out of you.”

His lawyer told the court Duckenfield lived in care as a child from the age of five and moved around to several different group homes. He’s lived on his own since the age of 17, mostly on the streets, and has a problem with drug addiction to opioids and crack cocaine.

Duckenfield moved to Nova Scotia in 2011.

When he got out of jail last month, Duckenfield intended to live with a former partner in Eastern Passage who is the mother of his three-year-old child. His lawyer told the court the unemployed carpenter had stopped using drugs.

Apologized for senior assault

“I apologize for what I have done, and I understand the consequences,” Duckenfield told the court last month.

The judge said it sounded like Duckenfield had some things to motivate him to do well.

“And I hope that when you’re released that that motivation is still in place. Because if you’re motivated, you’ll be fine,” Judge Brad Sarson said at Duckenfield’s sentencing last month.

‘Stay away from the drugs’

“As long as you stay away from the drugs, and if you can find some work, great. It sounds like you’re very employable. So, as long as you want to do well, I think you can do well. So, I hope that things work out for you upon your release.”

Duckenfield has been sentenced for 21 crimes in Nova Scotia stretching back to 2016, including theft under $5,000, mischief, both trafficking and possession of illegal drugs, uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm, and possession of property obtained by crime.

Duckenfield is also facing charges for an Oct. 3, 2022 assault, as well as failing to comply with release conditions on that same day. Those are slated to go to trial April 11, 2024.

Stabbing victim no stranger to court 

Clattenburg had also run afoul of the law before.

A Dartmouth provincial court judge gave him a conditional discharge in April 2021 for assault and uttering threats to kill, poison or injure an animal.

The offences took place in Lower Sackville, between Aug. 31, 2019 and Feb. 17, 2020.

He was also sentenced to 18 months of probation.