Beating victim's wife optimistic after meeting with Stelmach
Last Updated: Friday, May 16, 2008 | 4:49 PM ET
CBC News
A woman whose husband was left severely brain-damaged by a savage beating eight years ago said she's optimistic about getting more compensation money after a 45 minute meeting with Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach Friday.
Dougald Miller has been in an Edmonton nursing home since the attack and able only to communicate by blinking.
He received $110,000 from the provincial program that compensates victims of crime, the maximum allowed. But the money has now run out, leaving his wife Lesley Miller concerned about his care.
Lesley Miller, with her husband Dougald, in the nursing home where he has been since the attack in 2000. (CBC) Miller said she asked the premier to consider increasing the limit in special cases.
"As the act is written just now, it doesn't bring in that each case should be looked at individually. And of course I'm not considered a victim, I'm a secondary victim, but I'm not a victim. So the act has to be rewritten and he's going to look into that too. So I feel like I'm getting somewhere today."
Leo Teskey was convicted of aggravated assault in the attack last February. It was his second trial on the charge. He was originally convicted in 2002, but the verdict was set aside by the Supreme Court, which ruled the presiding judge took too long to issue his ruling.
Teskey is undergoing a psychiatric assessment because the Crown intends to have him declared a dangerous offender and kept in prison indefinitely.
