Guilty pleas in group attack on northern woman

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This article was published 04/11/2022 (1087 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two people charged with aggravated sexual assault, following what police described at the time as a violent group attack on a 34-year-old Norway House woman, have pleaded guilty to reduced charges and were released from custody.

The 33-year-old man and 30-year-old woman were among 12 people initially arrested and six ultimately charged in the Aug. 11, 2021, attack.

The two offenders pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of assault causing bodily harm. They were sentenced to the equivalent of nine months of time served. Charges of forcible confinement against both offenders were stayed by the Crown.

The plea bargain, jointly recommended by the Crown and defence lawyers and agreed to by King’s Bench Justice Candace Grammond, came a week after a female youth co-accused was acquitted at trial of the same initial charges.

The plea bargain “is very much informed by the results of the trial,” Crown attorney Nick Reeves told court Thursday, later adding another consideration was the victim’s ability to testify in court.

Bruce Bonney, lawyer for the female offender, told court the youth accused was acquitted on many of the same facts a court would have considered had his client taken her case to trial.

“Which indicates there was a significant possibility of her being acquitted should she go to trial,” he said.

Court was told the victim and several accuseds had been at a Norway House home drinking and smoking crack cocaine when the victim was assaulted by several people, taped to a chair, assaulted again, and then stripped of her clothes and put in a shower.

The victim ran from the house wrapped in a towel at the same time police arrived to investigate the disturbance.

At the time, police said the woman told them she had been held against her will and repeatedly sexually assaulted.

The charges to which the two offenders pleaded guilty did not include any allegations of a sexual nature.

“These two individuals are pleading guilty to at some point participating in the assault,” Reeves said. “We are not saying they participated the entire time, but at some point they were a party to the attack.”

The victim suffered “significant” bruising to her head and body and her eyes were so swollen “she could barely see out of them,” Reeves said.

Bonney said his client “had a history of animosity” with the victim and was the first to assault her, “but then other people stepped in and basically started a group beating of (the victim).”

Bonney said his client later helped the woman “clean herself up” in the shower and removed the tape from her body.

“To be clear to the court, she didn’t do this to comfort (the victim), but to basically cover everybody’s tracks,” he said.

The woman offered a tearful apology to the victim, who was not present in court.

“I just want to go home to my kids,” she said. “I don’t think I am going to drink anymore because my drinking is what put me here.”

Kaitlynn Porath, the male offender’s lawyer, said her client punched the victim in the head near the beginning of the attack and later tried to stop others who were continuing the assault, “but was essentially told to stay out of it.”

Charges against a 31-year-old male co-accused were stayed earlier this month after he agreed to a one-year peace bond.

Two male co-accuseds remain before the court.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca