One of two RCMP officers convicted of lying to a public inquiry into the tasering death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski has been sentenced to 30 months in jail.
Const. Kwesi Millington had been found guilty of perjury for his testimony to the Braidwood Inquiry into Dziekanski's death in Vancouver airport in 2007.
Millington fired the stun gun five times and B.C. Supreme Court Justice William Ehrcke decided he later exaggerated the threat a stapler-brandishing Dziekanski posed to officers in the confrontation.
Defence had argued for a one-year conditional sentence, while Crown sought up to three years in jail.
Ehrcke said a sentence near the high end of the range was required because Millington was an officer sworn to uphold the law and tell the truth but instead lied and impeded the inquiry's pursuit of the truth.
He noted a prison term will be harsh for a police officer.
Perjury carries a maximum prison term of 14 years, but the longest sentence ever handed down for the crime was nine years for Air India bomb-maker Inderjit Singh Reyat in 2011, and no one had received more than six years prior to that.
Dziekanski's mother told reporters the sentence has finally brought justice for her son.
Millington is appealing the sentence and potentially the conviction, and he can apply for bail pending those appeals.
Former RCMP Cpl. Benjamin (Monty) Robinson is also to be sentenced for perjury in July. Two of the four Mounties who testified at the inquiry and were latest accused of colluding to give false testimony have since been acquitted of perjury.