House arrest for tearing out cop’s hair

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This article was published 22/11/2022 (1304 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A 24-year-old Brandon woman will spend the next six months under house arrest after she pleaded guilty to assaulting a local police officer and a family member last year.

Melisa Clairmont appeared in a Brandon courtroom Monday morning, with her defence attorney having already prepared a joint recommendation for sentencing alongside a representative from the Crown.

While Clairmont had no criminal record before 2021, that all changed on Aug. 21 of that year, when Brandon police were called to the Keystone Motor Inn over reports of an unruly patron.

After officers arrived at the scene, they located an inebriated Clairmont and attempted to place her under arrest.

While she was initially co-operative, Clairmont became increasingly belligerent as police brought her closer to their vehicle, forcing a female officer to try to put her in restraints.

During the struggle, Clairmont reached out and yanked a clump of the female officer’s hair out of her scalp. Even after Clairmont was placed in the police vehicle, she continued to act erratically by yelling and spitting in the general direction of the officers.

“This was a very, very difficult situation for the officers to deal with,” Crown attorney Jonathan Mays told the court Monday.

“They have a hard enough job as it is … and I can only imagine how painful that would be, quite frankly, to be a woman and to have your hair pulled out when it’s lengthy and in a bun.”

Clairmont’s second encounter with police took place Nov. 1 in Winnipeg, when officers were called to a Petro Canada gas station around 1 a.m. after learning that a patron was acting aggressively toward staff.

A followup investigation revealed Clairmont was in a state of distress after getting into a fight with her aunt as the two were on their way to a nightclub on Halloween.

The altercation got so heated that Clairmont punched her aunt in the eye, resulting in significant bruising and swelling.

Similar to the Aug. 21 incident in Brandon, Clairmont was heavily intoxicated when she committed the assault.

“Alcohol is likely a factor in her life at that time … leading to what we hope is a blip on the radar in terms of her behaviour,” Mays said.

“Coming before the court without a criminal record, [this] seems a bit out of character, but it’s quite extreme.”

Defence lawyer Jonathan Richert said Monday that Clairmont was in fact using alcohol at that point in her life to treat her anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

As a result of the alcohol, Richert said his client would adopt a kind of “Jekyll and Hyde” personality, which was on full display when she assaulted the police officer.

“Ms. Clairmont has absolutely no memory of having acted that way on Aug. 21. She was in a state of extreme intoxication,” Richert said.

“She was visibly shocked, even as recently as yesterday. Although she had heard it before from me, when I reviewed the particulars with her and what the police report said, it still came as a bit of surprise to her to hear, again, how she acted on that day.”

However, Richert went on to say that the two incidents have served as a wake-up call for his client, who has since entered an Addictions Foundation Manitoba program to properly treat her substance use and mental health issues.

Richert also mentioned that Clairmont aspires to attend post-secondary school in the future and possibly use her personal struggles with alcohol to become an addictions counsellor.

Richert, however, signed off on the Crown’s recommendation for a conditional sentence order, given the severity of the first assault charge alone.

“When you do something like this to a police officer, there are going to be real consequences,” he said. “You don’t get off the hook without a criminal record. You don’t just get probation.”

Judge Patrick Sullivan ultimately concurred with the two attorneys, greenlighting Clairmont’s conditional sentence order that will confine the woman to her residence for the next six months, with some exceptions.

Throughout her sentence, Clairmont must also abide by a variety of conditions, which include abstaining from consuming alcohol or any other intoxicating substances.

Once the sentence is over, Clairmont is also subject to a one-year period of supervised probation.

After Sullivan gave his ruling, the judge wished Clairmont luck on her road to recovery, especially since she has a four-year-old son to look after.

“He depends on you and you’ve got to think about him as well, which means you have to be very careful and cautious that you follow these orders,” Sullivan said.

Clairmont addressed Sullivan directly after entering her pleas Monday, telling the judge that she was truly sorry for her actions and that he won’t see her in court again.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @KyleDarbyson