Court hears details of victim's life

Relatives paint new, tender picture of 59-year-old man killed in stabbing attack by group of girls

- JENNIFER PAGLIARO

Kenneth Lee was the kind of uncle you could look up to - the family member you looked forward to having pizza and chocolate milk with as you settled in for a round of Monopoly.

He was the kind of brother whose corny jokes punctuated birthdays and holidays.

Most of all, his sister Helen Shum, remembered: "He was loved."

Now, the mother of three said, she lies awake at night, images of the surveillance video depicting her brother's violent death repeating in her head a group of teenage girls assaulting and ultimately stabbing him in a parkette in downtown Toronto just days before Christmas in 2022.

"I feel this is a nightmare that will never end," Shum wrote in a victim-impact statement read by the Crown on Friday in a court up the street from that site.

That and other family statements provided a new picture of the 59-year-old man at the centre of the much-publicized "girl swarm" case and the devastation of his loss. In a case that stunned the public, eight teenage girls were initially charged with second-degree murder in Lee's death. At the time, the accused included three 13-year-olds, three 14-year-olds and a pair of 16year-olds.