Gun-threat incident draws community sentence
Brian Joseph MacKinnon, 70, menaced Airport Inn residents with firearm last year
A Fredericton man who’d been in custody for two months for skipping a court date for a volatile firearms incident is longer behind bars after getting a community-based sentence Thursday.
Brian Joseph MacKinnon, 70, appeared in Fredericton provincial court by telephone from jail Thursday to answer to charges dating back to last year.
He pleaded guilty Thursday to possessing non-restricted firearms - a shotgun and two rifles - without a licence in Lincoln on May 2, 2022.
MacKinnon also admitted to breaching a police undertaking requiring him to attend court Aug. 17, 2022.
Crown prosecutor Matthew Paik said police were dispatched to the Airport Inn in Lincoln on May 2, 2022, after receiving a report that MacKinnon, who’d been living there at the time, was highly intoxicated and brandishing a firearm, threatening his neighbours.
When officers arrived, Paik said, MacKinnon was inside his room.
“They located the shotgun on his bed in plain sight,” the prosecutor said, adding there were also two rifles there - one intact and the other disassembled.
He said MacKinnon had a licence for the guns, but it had expired in January 2020.
Paik said the offender was released on an undertaking with an Aug. 17, 2022, court date, but he didn’t attend as required.
An arrest warrant was issued, court heard, and he was picked up and remanded two months ago.
MacKinnon admitted he committed the crimes, but noted he doesn’t remember doing it.
Regarding the failure to attend court, duty counsel Melinda Ponting-Moore said the defendant had been in a car accident around that time and sustained an injury to his ankle.
That made travelling into Fredericton a challenge, she said, but he acknowledges he should have made arrangements or contacted the court to report the obstacle.
Paik filed MacKinnon’s criminal history with the court, noting there was a previous conviction for a firearms offence, though it was in 1971. He noted the last conviction on the record was in 1980.
“I was in junior high,” said Judge Cameron Gunn.
The parties agreed the dated record wasn’t a major factor for consideration in sentence.
Paik and Ponting-Moore offered a joint recommendation on sentence: a conditional sentence of eight months, to be served in the community under curfew, and followed by a year of probation.
Court heard MacKinnon has a number of health issues, but he’ll reside at the Oak Centre in Fredericton upon his release, and staff there will be looking into a long-term care facility for him.
Gunn accepted the joint recommendation, imposed the eight-month conditional sentence.
During that time, MacKinnon is to reside at the Oak Centre and follow a curfew of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
He must also abstain from alcohol and non-prescribed drugs, possess no weapons, attend counselling as directed and stay away from the Airport Inn.
Gunn also ordered 12 months of probation to follow, and the same conditions apply during that term, save for the curfew.
The judge noted that should a long-term care placement be found for MacKinnon during his conditional sentence, he’ll have to come to court to apply for a change of address.
Gunn also ordered MacKinnon to submit a DNA sample for inclusion in a criminal database, and to refrain from possessing firearms and other weapons for life.
Furthermore, he ordered the weapons seized by police last year forfeited to the Crown.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.