On July 6 the man punched the victim three or four times in the left eye on 49th Street. She suffered a severely swollen black eye which extended up to her forehead as a result of the assault.

Originally charged with assault causing bodily harm, the man pleaded to guilty to assault when he appeared in NWT Supreme Court last week. The Crown indicated he had spent most of the past 20 years in jail for convictions of sexual assault, assault with a weapon, and several other crimes of violence.

He has 54 convictions on his adult criminal record.

His girlfriend wrote a letter to the court, and indicated that she wanted him to come home to her.

In addition to the jail sentence, Justice John Vertes ordered the man to provide police with a DNA sample.