No bail for man accused of forcible confinement

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This article was published 03/02/2022 (1685 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON – A man accused of holding another man captive and assaulting and robbing him was denied bail Thursday morning.

Cody Wood, 24, is charged with forcible confinement, aggravated assault, assault with a weapon and robbery. He was arrested on Jan. 28.

Wood is presumed innocent until proven guilty and the charges have not been proven in court.

At approximately 6 a.m. on Jan. 28, a man showed up at a Brandon homeless shelter and told staff he had “been held hostage and tortured for several days,” Crown attorney Melania Cannon told the court. He had serious injuries and was transported to hospital.

He allegedly had a fractured nose, fractured ribs, a broken eardrum, bruising all over his body, burn marks, cuts to his thigh and other injuries, she said.

He reportedly told police his ex-girlfriend had invited him over to her apartment on Jan. 24, five days earlier, according to the Crown.

When he arrived, three men allegedly beat him with a collapsible baton, a bike chain and a piece of wood before letting him go days later. He was also allegedly burned with a hair straightener, stomped on with steel-toed boots and cut with a knife, Cannon said.

The captors are alleged to have let him go on the January morning and it took him an hour to get to the shelter, she said.

The man’s wounds were supposedly in different states of healing and some were beginning to become infected, she said.

“[The victim] also learned his bank card had been stolen and the contents of his accounts e-transferred to [his ex-girlfriend],” she told the court.

The alleged victim identified two of the men to police, she said.

On Jan. 28, police got a search warrant for the apartment where the man was allegedly held. Once inside, Cannon said they found several of the weapons, blood and other physical evidence.

That afternoon, police allegedly arrested Wood at the shelter.

Cannon described the allegations as “indignities” against the victim.

“It’s a course of events that is practically unspeakable,” she said.

Defence lawyer Jessie Brar said Wood had a difficult childhood and spent much of it in foster homes, where he went through multiple types of abuse. He never really had a home and was let down by the system, he said.

Wood has significant Gladue factors and has multiple family members who attended residential schools, he said. He also noted Wood hasn’t been involved in the criminal justice system before.

“He’s been put in a situation where the effects of colonialism and of course the residential school system … have not put him on an equal footing with people who may be in a similar situation as him,” Brar said.

He suggested a bail plan that would have had the accused living in his home community with supports.

Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta called the allegations “very concerning.” While there was no gun allegedly used in the crimes, the level of violence reported is “alarming.”

“Pretty heinous behaviours … there appears to be a degree of planning and forethought,” she said.

She denied his release on bail, saying the proposed plan didn’t give her confidence.

Wood is next scheduled to appear in court in March.

» dmay@brandonsun.com

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