CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — A Charlottetown man who said he was chasing someone with a kitchen knife because the other man was trying to get him involved in drugs was recently given a suspended sentence.
Joseph Leslie Fraser, 48, appeared before Judge John Douglas in provincial court in Charlottetown where he pleaded guilty to possessing a knife for a dangerous purpose.
Crown attorney Lisa Goulden told the court the Charlottetown police responded to a call on Feb. 9 at around 10:15 p.m. after someone reported a disturbance in the Value Village parking lot.
A witness reported seeing a man with a butcher knife chasing another man.
Goulden said both men were known to each other and had some sort of dispute.
Defence lawyer Alex Dalton said the other man was someone Fraser has known for a couple of years and what he did was silly.
Dalton said Fraser wanted nothing to do with the other man.
Fraser addressed the court to say he was sorry and that the knife was in his car to cut an oil bottle, not for use as a weapon.
He said the other man was trying to get him involved in drugs, but he didn’t want anything to do with it.
With the suspended sentence, Fraser will be on probation for nine months during which time he is banned from contact with the other man.
