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Banished to B.C., stalker wants to return

Woman fighting order to stay away from city for five years

By: Mike McIntyre

Posted: 08/3/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

It appears absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

A chronic local criminal who recently agreed to be banished from Manitoba for five years is now fighting the unusual court order, claiming she regrets the move and should be allowed to return home.

Alanna Phizacklea lives in British Columbia after being sentenced in March for a string of Winnipeg offences, including criminal harassment against two individuals.

The Crown had sought a penitentiary term but agreed to a more lenient two-year conditional sentence and three years of supervised probation as long as Phizacklea agreed to take a one-way ticket out of town and not come back for the duration of her punishment.

The reason, as explained in court, is Phizacklea has mental health issues and a history of stalking people she encounters and becomes fixated on. In the most recent case, her victim was her probation officer, who had been assigned to work with her following a previous conviction.

Many of her victims live in fear and were happy to learn she had agreed to hit the road.

Provincial court Judge Ted Lismer went along with the sentence. Phizacklea has been living with her mother in B.C. for the past five months but has indicated she wants to return to Winnipeg. The Crown opposes the move, saying it would have fought to put her behind bars if not for the relocation condition.

A hearing is set for Aug. 15 in which Phizacklea will argue her case before Lismer, acting as her own lawyer. She will have to appear in court by video link from B.C. because she would risk arrest if she returned to Winnipeg for the hearing.

There have been a handful of similar banishment cases in recent years, although justice officials believe this is the longest and most expansive.

"It's incredible. I've never heard of anything like it," one veteran lawyer told the Free Press. "I think the only way you could legally do that is to have someone agree to it."

Five years ago, a Winnipeg man was prohibited from living in the city for a year upon his release from jail, a condition the judge hoped would break a seemingly endless cycle of domestic violence. He pleaded guilty to assaulting his longtime partner during a drinking binge and had a lengthy criminal record, including six prior attacks on the same woman dating back more than a decade.

Judge Marva Smith specifically mentioned Brandon and Thompson as possible locations for the man to settle, adding she didn't want people to think she was simply exporting Winnipeg's problems to another community. She cited a handful of similar precedents from other Canadian jurisdictions, including one from the Northwest Territories in which a man was banned from living in Tuktoyaktuk after a 2002 assault conviction.

In 2009, a chronic 17-year-old Winnipeg car thief agreed to move to Saskatchewan in an attempt to curb his offences.

The teen was ordered to live with family in Yorkton while on probation and faced prosecution if he didn't comply. Authorities hoped relocating the teen out west would remove him from the influence of his street gang.

However, the teen's mother applied weeks later to have the probation order changed to allow him to continue living in Winnipeg. A judge agreed and it wasn't long before he got in trouble again and was back in custody.

There have been cases where sex-trade workers have been forbidden from stepping foot in certain high-risk city neighbourhoods where they commonly ply their trade, and aboriginal offenders have been ordered not to return to reserve communities where their crimes occurred.

www.mikeoncrime.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 3, 2012 A5

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