A MAN who pleaded guilty to four charges from two separate incidents will remain in jail for six more weeks.
William Willie, 24, pleaded guilty to two breach charges for contacting a person contrary to his recognizance and failure to abstain from consuming alcohol in July this year and pleaded guilty to charges of assault and uttering threats charge from an April incident.
On April 2, witnesses reported seeing Willie assaulting a woman on the street, hitting her, throwing her to the ground and threatening her, prosecutor Barry Zacharias told court while reviewing evidence before sentencing.
He left before police could arrest him but was spotted walking down Lakelse Ave. April 7, court heard.
Willie ran and made several attempts to evade police before being caught and arrested for assault, court heard.
He was released with conditions on April 11.
On July 16, a witness reported to police that Willie was chasing a woman through George Little Park, court heard.
The woman denied being assaulted and said she was talking on her cell phone when Willie tried to grab it away from her, court heard.
Willie was arrested.
He has a criminal record with about 20 convictions, a few of which are assaults, said Zacharias.
Provincial Court Judge Calvin Struyk noted that Willie had prior convictions for assault-related offences with the most recent one being in 2007.
He noted that the prosecution and defence had made a joint sentencing submission and, since lawyers are privy to more information than the judge, was supposed to take the submission seriously unless he had compelling reasons to put it aside.
“…in my view, if not for the fact it’s a joint submission, I probably would’ve imposed a longer period of incarceration,” said Struyk.
Struyk sentenced Willie to 60 days jail time and, with 18 days in custody already, that left 42 days for him to serve in jail.
That term is to be followed by one year of probation in which his conditions include having no contact directly or indirectly with the victim if he had been drinking in the preceding 24 hours, and to immediately leave her presence if she or a peace officer requests him to and not return until she invites him, said Struyk.
Willie must also attend, participate in and complete any counselling as directed by his probation officer to the probation officer’s satisfaction and to provide a DNA sample to police.
He must also pay a victim fine surcharge of $50 within one year.
