Sioux Valley man gets 10 months for pepper-spray assault

A judge sentenced a Sioux Valley man to about 10 months in jail on Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to pepper-spraying his girlfriend’s face and hitting her.

Ashton Hart, 19, pleaded guilty in a Brandon provincial courtroom to assaulting his girlfriend with a weapon, breaching his probation order by possessing a weapon and breaching a court-ordered 24-hour house arrest.

“A very troubling set of circumstances here,” Crown attorney Sarah Kok said. “It’s violence on a domestic partner. It’s violence on a young Indigenous person who is statistically more recognized to be a victim of crime herself.”

Kok told the court how the events unfolded.

Manitoba First Nations Police in Sioux Valley Dakota Nation reported a domestic assault to Virden RCMP on April 18. They said a man had pepper-sprayed a woman, and she needed an ambulance immediately.

MFNP told Virden RCMP the man was hiding under a deck and that he possibly had other weapons.

While RCMP were on their way, MFNP reported that the man ran to an apartment building.

Police arrived at the scene to speak with the victim and other people who witnessed the assault.

“Both indicate that Mr. Hart was ‘freaking out,’” Kok said. “He thought (the victim) had cheated on him, and while Mr. Hart was arguing, he grabbed a can of bear spray and sprayed it directly at the victim, hitting her in the face several times.”

Officers got the victim medical attention and confirmed her injuries were consistent with pepper spray.

“Her eyes were watering. There was a swollen face and redness … She was in a lot of pain,” Kok said. “Officers also note that (she) had bruising around her neck.”

The victim was taken to the hospital, and while Kok said she was unco-operative in providing a formal statement to police, she did tell them she and Hart were in a relationship and he had sprayed her in the face and struck her multiple times on other parts of her body.

Hart was also taken to the hospital because of his level of impairment and his own symptoms from the pepper spray.

Police found that he was under a 10-year weapons prohibition, which Kok pointed out as an aggravating factor.

Kok said Hart was held in custody before he was released on a $700 cash deposit on condition that he reside in Sioux Valley under a 24-hour house arrest.

On May 11 and 19, police went to his residence for curfew checks, neither of which he was there for. On the first check, his mother answered the door and said Hart had been “in and out” and that he wasn’t living there.

Police found Hart on May 21 and arrested him. He has been held in custody since his arrest and now has 60 days of time in custody — 90 at enhanced credit.

Kok asked the judge to consider a sentence of 12 and a half months, which would include six months for the assault with a weapon, six months for the breach of the weapons prohibition and 15 days for breaching his house-arrest conditions.

Defence lawyer Anthony Dawson told the court his client had issues with drugs and alcohol. He said Hart told him he “made a go” at being sober in February, but ultimately relapsed on the night of the assault.

Dawson said the reason he wasn’t at home during the curfew checks was because he was taking care of his one-year-old child. He said the child lives with their mother, who also has addiction issues.

“There would be times where the mother was very drunk or intoxicated from some other substance, and Hart would be the only person available to go and take the child to a safer place,” Dawson said.

He acknowledged that it’s not an excuse but wanted to give the court some context.

Dawson said Hart has prominent Gladue factors and has bounced between his mother’s and grandmother’s homes most of his life.

“At basically every home he was at, whether it was his mother’s or his grandmother’s, there was partying, there was alcohol and there was violence and fighting,” Dawson said.

He said Hart’s mother, grandmother and uncle abused him growing up and pointed out that his grandmother went to residential school.

Kok acknowledged Hart’s Gladue factors but said the victim is from the same community and likely has a similar historical background.

“The seriousness of the incident argues that there shouldn’t be a large difference to the sentence being received for a non-Indigenous person to an Indigenous person,” Kok said.

Dawson asked the court to consider a nine-and-a-half-month sentence, which would include five months for the assault with a weapon, four months for the weapons prohibition breach and 15 days for the curfew breach.

Manitoba Associate Chief Judge Donovan Dvorak sentenced Hart to a 10-and-a-half-month sentence — six months for the assault, five for the weapons prohibition breach and 15 days for the curfew breach.

“Specific deterrence is the main consideration that I have. He has to be deterred from acting out violently and he also has to be deterred from possessing weapons,” Dvorak said. “If it’s alcohol that’s driving him in that direction, then it’s a choice that he makes knowing that’s the possible outcome.”

» sanderson@brandonsun.com