A 16-year-old who brought a hunting knife to a local high school last fall was handed a conditional discharge and 25 community service hours.
The young man pleaded guilty to charges of carrying a concealed weapon and was handed the term. Provided he stays out of trouble for the next six months and completes the community service hours he will not have a criminal record.
Police were called to Paul Kane High School on Oct. 20 last year after someone reported seeing the teen with the blade in the school’s smoking area.
After getting a description of the boy, police confronted him and he freely admitted to having it on him and handed it over to the officers.
The young man apparently felt generally threatened at the school, but duty counsel Brad Leebody said he had no specific reason for carrying the weapon. The young man told the court he was deeply sorry for what happened and apologized for his actions.
“It was a very foolish mistake and I assure you I will never be back here again.
While the Crown and defence agreed the boy should do 25 hours of community service, he told Judge Joanne Goss he would do 200 or 300 to prove to the court he was truly remorseful.
Goss declined the boy’s offer, but told him he should feel free to perform the extra 275 hours.
She also imposed a two-year weapons ban.
A young man who pleaded guilty to 19 separate charges this week will spend the next year under a tight curfew.
The teen pleaded guilty to a wide array of offences on Tuesday, primarily breaches of bail and probation conditions. Those included being out after curfew, associating with people he was prohibited from being around and living in places other than his mother’s house.
He also racked up several more serious offences as well. On July 11 RCMP got a call from his mother after she found a laptop in her son’s room she didn’t recognize. She also knew the young man did not have the means to buy it on his own. The mother turned the computer over to the RCMP, who discovered it had been stolen.
On Aug 16, officers got a call from the local McDonalds about two teens selling items in the back of the restaurant. When they arrived they found him and another young man with a backpack full of items including keys, a GPS unit and a BlackBerry that had all been reported stolen.
In late August, he was living with a different family and took their car without consent.
As he continued to rack up breaches of his release conditions, the young man was held in custody on three separate occasions, racking up 45 total days behind bars. The original plea submission from Crown prosecutor Jeff Morrison and defence lawyer Brad Leebody was for that time to be credited on a two-for-one basis for a total of 90 days, with a year of probation to follow.
Both of the lawyers spend the majority of their time working in adult court and Judge Joanne Goss pointed out youth time is not credited on a two-for-one basis.
Goss ordered the young man sentenced to a 30-day custody order — a type of near house arrest — to serve the balance of the 90-day sentence and then added the year of probation.
While on probation, the young man will have to respect a daily 7 p.m. curfew, abstain completely from alcohol and drugs and perform 100 hours of community service.
Goss ordered he complete 25 hours every three months to make sure he is keeping up with it.
