SUMMERSIDE – A 34-year-old Prince County man was sentenced to 75 days in jail after pleading guilty in Summerside provincial court, Wednesday, to charges of assaulting a female, assaulting a peace officer, resisting arrest and damage to property.
Terrance Roy Wilson was arrested by West Prince RCMP on Jan. 7 after police responded to a domestic dispute at an O’Leary residence. The victim told police that Wilson would not let her leave the residence and grabbed her by the arms, resulting in scratches on her fingers and a sore right arm.
Crown attorney David O’Brien said police described Wilson as agitated, defiant and aggressive towards them when they attempted to arrest him.
At one point Wilson ripped off his T-shirt and stood in an aggressive manner in front of police, yelling he had nothing to lose.
Police managed to put Wilson in handcuffs but he continued to resist.
O’Brien said Wilson used his chest to shove one officer into a wall resulting in damage to the wall. As police took Wilson to the cruiser he continued to curse the officers and struggle, ignoring police directions. At this point Wilson attempted to bite a female officer.
As police attempted to search Wilson before placing him in the car, he said he was not going with them and continued to curse the officers. After being placed in the cruiser, Wilson kicked out a rear window of the vehicle and while en route to Prince County jail, Wilson threatened to kill one police officer and beat up another.
Defence counsel Trish Cheverie said previous to this last incident, her client who has assault charges against the same victim in 2009 and 2011, had been making strong progress over the last year to turn his life around. She said his parole officer got Wilson involved in counseling and work.
She said Wilson was put on medication by his psychiatrist and it was working.
But over the holiday season, she said Wilson felt he couldn’t cope very well without counseling but was told he could not be considered for addiction counseling because of the medication he was on.
Cheverie said less than a week before this last assault, Wilson went home and flushed all of his medicine and began smoking marijuana as a means of self-medication. He had hoped this would make him eligible for the addictions counseling program.
O’Brien said the victim, in a victim’s impact statement, supported the claim that Wilson had been making good progress in getting his life back on track until the last assault.
In a joint recommendation for sentence, both the Crown and defence agreed a sentence of 75 days would be appropriate.
Judge Jeff Lantz concurred. Along with the jail term, Wilson was placed on two years probation.
Wilson has been in jail awaiting trial for 23 days. Lantz gave Wilson credit for time served and the actual sentence will be 52 days.
