For the first time since he was arrested last year, Brodie Nicholls apologized in his own words Thursday for stabbing 14-year-old Jesse Clarke in the heart, killing him in an east end street.

"I'm truly sorry from my heart for what I did and for your pain," Nicholls read aloud in court, during the second day of his sentencing hearing. "I can't imagine what it's like to lose a loved one."

As he apologized, members of Clarke's family and friends held each other and sobbed openly, as they struggled to keep it together after yet again hearing a point by point description of how the teen was killed.

Just metres away, members of Nicholls' family cried too, as they were faced with hearing over and over about how the 19-year-old's "horrific" upbringing led him to what both the Crown and the defence labeled a tragedy.

Clarke's death marked the first time that Hamilton's youth gangs were thrust into the spotlight, and police have since started investigating multiple incidents of violence in the city. The mayor has even launched a task force in an attempt to curb the problem.

Nicholls was originally charged with second-degree murder for Clarke's death, but plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter in June.

In the first part of the hearing back in August, Defence lawyer Beth Bromberg argued that Nicholls was a young man driven to one burst of violence because of a tragic past and mental health issues — but on Thursday, assistant Crown attorney Jill McKenzie said that doesn't absolve him of his actions.

"This is a tragic case for everybody," McKenzie said. "But that tragedy is magnified because it didn't have to be."

The Crown did agree that Nicholls has had a "difficult and horrific" childhood rife with reported abuse and abandonment, but also that he understands the severity of his actions.

McKenzie said Clarke's stabbing falls "closer to the murder end of the spectrum" of a manslaughter charge, and is seeking a minimum of eight years in a federal prison with credit for time served.

The defence is seeking a three-year sentence with credit for time served in a provincial institution. Bromberg has argued that Nicholls' abusive upbringing in concert with mental health issues and fetal alcohol syndrome as well as his Aboriginal heritage should be mitigating factors considered with sentencing.

McKenzie disagreed, and argued that the defence had not provided enough official documentation to prove those claims, also saying that some of Nicholls' mental health issues (auditory schizophrenia most specifically) only appeared after he was arrested and wouldn't have factored into the crime itself.

Clarke, 14, was in a group of about 10 young people who confronted Nicholls outside his east Hamilton home last August. According to an agreed statement of facts, many of those gathered described themselves as loosely affiliated with the BNA/LOM youth gangs.

It's unclear why they had assembled there. Clarke's family has long maintained he was not part of any gang.

Things escalated after Nicholls grabbed a knife from the home and started swinging it at the group. After he was hit in the neck with a pole, the confrontation moved down a side street. As people were dispersing, Clarke was stabbed in the heart.

"After I was hit, I snapped," Nicholls said in court. Bromberg called the incident a "spontaneous act in response to something very frightening that was happening that [Nicholls] couldn't handle."

Melissa Mercuri – a family friend who was one of a host of people who gave victim impact statements – told the court back in August that Clarke's death has fundamentally changed the community.

"It put fear into our kids," she said. Now, many are afraid to go out on their own, and "have to carry something with them."

McKenzie said that the court needs to send a message to the community at large that carrying weapons isn't the answer.

"The court needs to effectively and loudly denounce that action," she said.

Justice Catrina Braid is expected to deliver a sentencing decision Friday morning.