Half a gram of coke worth three months
Life sentence on the instalment plan

by Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 09/98) - Getting caught with cocaine in Yellowknife remains the most certain route to a stay in jail.

Territorial court Judge Michel Bourassa imposed a three-month sentence on a Yellowknife man this week for carrying half a gram of the drug -- about $70 worth.

The arrest was only possible due to extra effort by RCMP Corp. Mac Eaton, who has since been transferred to New Brunswick.

Court heard that Eaton, who was off-duty at the time, spotted the man cupping a small bag in his hand while walking behind Canadian Tire store in April. Eaton chased him down when the man attempted to run away.

The man tried to destroy the evidence by scattering the cocaine after being tackled to the ground, but Eaton scraped it and the dirt it was mixed with into his cap and marched the man back to the detachment, where he was charged.

Bourassa, who invariably imposes jail terms on all people convicted of cocaine offences, once again said the sentence was meant to be a deterrent to others.

"The cocaine problem in Yellowknife is a severe one that has been described in court by various witnesses in various cases," he said.

Bourassa sided with the defence, which had asked for a shorter sentence than the four or five months being sought by prosecutors, but ruled that the sentence would served as straight time rather than on weekends, which would have allowed the man to work.

A man territorial court Judge Michel Bourassa said seems determined "to serve a life sentence on the instalment plan" was sentenced to five months in jail for a drunken assault on a woman who was helping him with his alcohol counselling.

The man, who had been charged with breaching a court order not to drink on Dec. 30 after a dispute with a cab driver outside the Gold Range Hotel, called the woman the next day to say he was going back to jail.

He showed up for a lunch meeting still drunk and became angry after the appointment, grabbing the woman's wrist, pushing her around on the street and accusing her of calling police on him.

The woman, who no longer works as an alcohol counsellor but whom the court heard was a friend of the man, escaped without serious injury. But Bourassa took the man's lengthy criminal record into account, as well as the attack on an authority figure.

"He's been getting jail sentences since 1989 and he still keeps drinking and he still keeps hurting people," Bourassa said prior to sentencing him to four months for the assault and 30 days for the breach of probation.