Eye-gouging attack nets jail time

A woman has been sentenced to eight months behind bars for assaulting a woman by repeatedly punching her and gouging her eyes.

“The eyes are such a delicate part of a person, and unfortunately, you … gouged her eyes to the point where her eyelid was ripped and her tear ducts were injured,” Judge Lindy Choy said. “You can’t just go and attack someone like that.”

Shantelle Beaulieu, 31, pleaded guilty to the charge of assault causing bodily harm in Brandon provincial court on Wednesday.

The Crown recommended a sentence of eight months, while defence argued for a time-served sentence of seven months. Both agreed that the sentence should be followed by 18 months of supervised probation.

Crown attorney Rich Lonstrup detailed the “grotesque” assault.

On March 4, 2025, a woman was visiting a friend at an apartment complex in Brandon, and as they were about to go on a walk, they encountered a man and woman, one of them being Beaulieu.

The woman’s friend was speaking with the two when Beaulieu asked her who her friend was. When she told Beaulieu the woman’s name, Beaulieu “instantly set upon attacking her.”

“(She) started hitting her to the point where she broke the victim’s nose,” Lonstrup said.

He said Beaulieu and the victim didn’t know each other, but the victim had the same name as someone Beaulieu knew from a previous incident, and hearing the name instantly triggered her.

Beaulieu got the victim to the ground and held her there while she punched her in the face and scratched her eyes.

Lonstrup said Beaulieu’s fingers went inside the victim’s eye and ripped her eyelid, which resulted in her needing stitches.

“More concerningly — I don’t even think this is by intention so much as just in the heat of the fight — her fingers lodged into her eyelid and literally took out her tear ducts,” the Crown said.

The man initially tried to break up the fight before he joined in by kicking and stomping on the victim’s head. He received a sentence of six months in custody for his involvement.

The friend the victim had been visiting didn’t take part in the assault or help the victim.

Eventually, Beaulieu and the man stopped and left the apartment and the victim found someone on the street to help her. She called police and gave a description of the suspects.

Around 20 minutes later, police found two people matching the attacker’s description about a block away and arrested them.

Lonstrup said the injuries Beaulieu caused and the fact that it was an unprovoked two-on-one assault are aggravating factors.

He said the victim has had to make repeated trips to Winnipeg to see an optometrist specialist, who inserted artificial tear ducts into her eyes until the real ones healed and restored themselves.

“There was no long-term disfigurement or vision impact. She’s back to normal, she says. However, she can still feel some abnormality in her eye.”

Looking at Beaulieu’s record, which includes convictions for robbery, possessing a weapon, assault and assault with a weapon, Lonstrup said it justifies an eight-month sentence and shows this behaviour wasn’t out of character.

Lonstrup said Beaulieu’s guilty plea was mitigating and should hold significant weight, as she could have tested identification since she wasn’t arrested at the scene or claimed she was acting out of self-defence as she had a scratch on her face when she was arrested.

Defence lawyer Brett Gladstone said there is nothing positive to say about the assault itself, but described the situation as “symptomatic” of the trauma she has experienced.

“It wasn’t as though there was some malice as between these parties, or something to be gained out of it. It really is directly connected to the trauma,” he said, adding that she doesn’t remember the assault.

He said his client started drinking at 15 years old, using cocaine at 21 and methamphetamine at 23. He said her life took a “negative spiral” when methamphetamine came into the picture.

Gladstone said Beaulieu’s mother struggled with alcohol abuse, and Beaulieu was removed from her home to live with her father when she was two years old. She went into foster care when she was 14 and eventually went back to live with her mother and started getting involved with drugs and alcohol. He said she experienced various forms of abuse throughout her childhood.

He said she has now been sober for a “considerable amount of time” and has had time to work on herself.

When given a chance to speak, Beaulieu apologized.

“I’m truly sorry,” she said. “I do pray that she’s OK and that … things have progressed good for her.”

She said going forward she doesn’t plan on using alcohol or drugs and wants to spend time with her family. While she said it’s not up to her, she wants to be forgiven and redeem herself so she can move forward with her life on a better note.

Choy said both of the lawyers’ recommendations are lower than the sentence that would be imposed if she had been convicted after trial.

She said eight months was more appropriate for an event during which “such significant injury was inflicted on another individual.”

» sanderson@brandonsun.com