Brandon Sun - PRINT EDITION
A man has been sentenced to prison for an odd incident in which a woman, asleep in her own apartment, awoke to find a strange man stroking her cheek.
“I can only imagine that this was an absolutely terrifying experience for the victim,” Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta said in Brandon court on Monday as she sentenced Byron Wayne Prince.
Prince, 34, had only been out of jail 16 hours before he was in trouble for the cheek-stroking incident.
In April of 2011, he was sentenced to jail for assault with a weapon, assault and forcible confinement and he was released around 8 a.m. on July 15.
Then, around 12:19 a.m. on July 16, police were called to an apartment on the 300-block of 13th Street.
Prince had entered through a window and gone to the living room where an 18-year-old woman slept in a bed.
The woman awoke to find Prince hovering over her — face to face — stroking her cheek with one hand and touching her side with the other.
When the woman cried out, Prince headed for the apartment door. He gave her one last stare before he left.
On the way out of the building, Prince passed the victim’s roommate who happened to be coming home at that time.
Based on a description, within minutes police stopped and arrested an intoxicated Prince two to three blocks away and he’s been in custody since.
He was originally charged with break, enter and commit sexual assault, but on Monday that charge was amended to break, enter and commit assault. Prince pleaded guilty to the amended charge.
Despite that, Crown attorney Grant Hughes said the incident still had “sexual overtones” and Prince has a lengthy record that includes previous convictions for sexual assault, sexual interference and possession of child porn.
Defence lawyer Ryan Fawcett said that Prince made a mistake of trying to “rendezvous” with the wrong woman.
Just out of jail, when he entered the apartment he was looking to “hook up” with a woman he’d had a previous relationship with.
He’d had permission to enter that woman’s home through her window on previous occasions, court heard. However, he hadn’t spoken to her in some time and not before being released from jail.
So, either Prince got the wrong suite or his friend had moved. Fawcett said Prince left when he realized that the woman in the bed wasn’t the one he’d expected.
Hewitt-Michta sentenced Prince to two years in prison followed by three years probation with an order to take sex offender counselling as directed.
» ihitchen@brandonsun.com
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition September 18, 2012
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A man has been sentenced to prison for an odd incident in which a woman, asleep in her own apartment, awoke to find a strange man stroking her cheek.
“I can only imagine that this was an absolutely terrifying experience for the victim,” Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta said in Brandon court on Monday as she sentenced Byron Wayne Prince.
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A man has been sentenced to prison for an odd incident in which a woman, asleep in her own apartment, awoke to find a strange man stroking her cheek.
“I can only imagine that this was an absolutely terrifying experience for the victim,” Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta said in Brandon court on Monday as she sentenced Byron Wayne Prince.
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