Beating victim in a 'prison', wife tells court

A man who was savagely beaten into a vegetative state 10 years ago by Leo Teskey has been dying a slow, painful death, an Edmonton court was told Monday.

"He was the most wonderful man," Lesley Miller said of her husband, Dougald, at Teskey's dangerous offender hearing. "For the last 10 years, he's been in a prison."

As Lesley Miller detailed the attack, her husband, who had been brought into the courtroom in a modified wheelchair, moaned loudly.

"I knew that he wanted to say something, you know, but he was agreeing with the things I was saying," Lesley Miller told reporters later. "You heard him making those noises."

In 2000, Miller, then a 61-year-old apartment manager in Edmonton, was beaten so badly he nearly died.  Teskey, 40, was initially found guilty of aggravated assault in 2002 and declared a dangerous offender in 2005.

However, in June 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned the aggravated assault conviction and ordered a new trial for Teskey, because the original trial judge took more than 11 months to deliver his written reasons for the verdict.

In February 2008, a provincial court judge in Edmonton found Teskey guilty in the retrial.

In his final arguments Monday, Crown prosecutor Kevin Mott urged the judge to again declare Teskey a dangerous offender, arguing he is a psychopath who lacks a moral compass and poses a real danger to society.

Teskey's lawyer will make his final arguments to the judge on Tuesday.