Woman gets nine more months in jail for stabbing

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This article was published 05/04/2022 (1437 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A woman will spend an additional nine months behind bars for stabbing another woman in the neck in the middle of the day, an incident a judge says made the whole community a victim.

“The court needs to send a strong deterrent and denunciatory message about people roaming the streets of Brandon with knives on their person and about knife violence, something we are seeing too much of lately,” said Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta while sentencing Harmony Linklater for the June 2021 stabbing on Ninth Street.

“Incidents like this make people feel unsafe in our downtown. [The victim] is not the only one impacted by what happened here. There is secondary victimization … on the whole community.”

Linklater was sentenced to a total of 404 days time already served in jail plus a further nine months in provincial jail after being found guilty of possession of a knife for a dangerous purpose and aggravated assault after a two-day trial in early March. The sentence comes out to a total of approximately 22 months in jail.

She initially pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Hewitt-Michta said the stabbing was “very serious.”

“Ms. Linklater carried an open knife … in anticipation of a possible confrontation. She carried that knife into a fistfight over a stolen bottle of liquor and she resorted to using it when the victim gained the upper hand in that fight. She stabbed the victim three times.”

Despite this, Hewitt-Michta acknowledged the victim had a role in the fight, as she approached Linklater.

Linklater, who appeared in court via video, nodded as Hewitt-Michta read her decision.

Over the two days of trial, the court heard from multiple police officers who investigated the stabbing. One officer testified he saw a fight break out before Linklater delivered “hammer-type fists” to the victim during the fight. The woman then started bleeding “all over” before she collapsed at the door of the convenience store.

Linklater also testified in her own defence, saying the issues started when the other woman took a bottle of vodka from her before the fight. She carried a knife in her backpack, but denied carrying it for self-defence.

Crown attorney Grant Hughes recommended a total sentence of three years in jail, minus time served, while defence lawyer Kaitlynn Porath recommended time served on Monday. Both sides recommended a year of supervised probation.

Linklater was struggling with addiction at the time of the stabbing and told the court she was under the influence of both alcohol and methamphetamine. Porath said on Monday that Linklater has taken programming while in jail and wants to make changes in her life going forward.

Hewitt-Michta encouraged Linklater to take advantage of all the help available to her while in jail.

“It’s clear you were going through some difficult things at this point in your life, you were making some bad choices, I think, about how you’re spending your time.

“Take advantage of all the help you get when you’re in custody so that when you get out, you’re healthy, you’re in a good space.”

She also sentenced her to a year of supervised probation.

» dmay@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @DrewMay_