B.C. man who pushed girlfriend to her death off cliff gets sentence reduced

Amy Watts is seen in a social media image. (Dee Vickberg / Facebook)

A man who killed his girlfriend by pushing her off a cliff in Nanaimo, B.C., has had his sentence reduced on appeal.

The court heard Kyle Ordway had been in a relationship with Amy Watts for years when he shoved her down an approximately 15-metre rockface to her death in May 2021.

Ordway told friends they had been fighting at the time.

He later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to four years behind bars – but appealed the punishment because of how the judge calculated his credit for time served, which went against a joint submission from the Crown and defence.

In a decision issued last week, a three-justice panel at the B.C. Court of Appeal found in Ordway’s favour.

“The Crown agrees the judge erred as alleged. Respectfully, so do I,” said Chief Justice Leonard Marchand, in the panel’s reasons.

Recalculated for a federal sentence

The Crown and defence submitted that Ordway should serve a four-year sentence, and be credited at a rate of 1.5:1 for the time he’d already spent in custody.

The court heard Ordway, who was 40 years old at sentencing, had a difficult childhood, and began using drugs at an early age.

While the judge said she accepted the joint submission, she also credited Ordway at a reduced rate of 1.435:1. Doing so meant he would end up with two years plus a day remaining – long enough for a federal sentence.

The judge considered the fact that Ordway and Watts were intimate partners, and that the killer had not sought help after pushing her off the cliff, as aggravating factors.

“She concluded a two-year sentence in a federal institution would meet the public interest,” Marchand said.

‘No basis’ to stray from joint submission

While judges are not bound by joint submissions, the Court of Appeal noted there is a “stringent” test for rejecting them – and found Ordway’s judge failed to meet that bar in her reasons.

“On a proper application of the public interest test, there was no basis to reduce the jointly proposed credit for Mr. Ordway’s pre-sentence custody,” Marchand said.

“Simply put, the proposed credit for pre-sentence custody would not have brought the administration of justice into disrepute.”

The panel pointed out the proposed credit and granted credit were “very close,” at 729 days versus 762 days.

The Court of Appeal decreased Ordway’s sentence in accordance with the joint submission. Since it began on Oct. 28, 2024, the updated sentence will end in September 2026.