Judge beefs up handsy homeless man’s jail sentence
Repeated groping of random victims in Fredericton merited longer stint behind bars
A judge imposed a longer jail term than what was sought by the Crown for a homeless man for groping a teenage girl randomly on the street, a crime he’d committed previously.
Judge Cameron Gunn sentenced Richard Todd Mann, 37, of no fixed address, to a year in jail on Jan. 6, after Mann had previously pleaded guilty to counts of sexual assault, assault and breach of probation.
During a sentencing hearing late last year, Crown prosecutor Nina Johnsen said Mann sexually assaulted a teenage girl - whose identity is protected by a court-ordered publication ban - randomly on the street the morning of Aug. 25 by grabbing her buttocks.
Court heard the girl was traumatized by the incident and is now reticent to walk around the downtown core.
Mann also assaulted a bike shop employee downtown Aug. 19 by spitting on him.
At that initial sentencing hearing, Johnsen recommended a jail term of five months, which worked out to the time Mann had already served, after the customary remand credit was factored in.
But Gunn adjourned the hearing for further submissions, expressing concern that the recommended sentence was too light.
“I questioned the sufficiency of that sentence,” the judge said Jan. 6, noting that it was inconsistent with what was required from the Criminal Code of Canada.
He noted that a summary sexual assault of a minor requires a mandatory minimum six-month jail term, a month shy of what the Crown had originally, which Johnsen acknowledged.
However, the prosecutor said while the slightly longer jail term was required, it still worked out to time served, given the extra couple of weeks Mann served on remand.
Gunn said his concerns about the sentence persisted, given that Mann’s criminal record includes a prior conviction for sexually assaulting a girl on the street.
But Johnsen said that prior conviction, while similar in circumstance to Mann’s latest sex assault, involved him slapping a woman, not a child, on the butt.
She also said Gunn’s earlier suggestion that Mann should be subject to an order barring him from public spaces where kids could be present wasn’t justified.
“We don’t have any evidence that Mr. Mann was targeting children,” Johnsen said.
Gunn said learning that the previous victim was an adult was important context for him to consider, but nevertheless, he has a responsibility to fulfil the objectives and principles of sentencing.
Clearly, Mann didn’t get the message when he was sentenced for the previous sexual assault, the judge said, and the court must take the new victim’s age into account.
“The Crown has a difficult job, and sometimes, they make arrangements with offenders for various reasons,” Gunn said.
Even so, he said, he felt he had to reject the sentencing recommendation offered by the Crown and defence.
The judge imposed nine months in jail for the sexual assault and an additional three months for the spitting assault, with one month for the probation violation, but that’s to be served concurrently.
That means Mann still has another six months left on his sentence.
Gunn also ordered a two-year term of probation to follow his jail sentence, during which the offender is to stay out of the downtown core except for the Fredericton Downtown Community Health Centre, and he can only attend that facility when he has proof of a scheduled appointment.
Mann is to have no contact with his victims during his probation.
The judge also ordered Mann to register as a sex offender for life, and to submit a DNA sample for inclusion in a criminal database.
You can contact Don MacPherson at ftonindependent@gmail.com.