SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A 30-year-old man was sentenced to 60 days in jail last Friday after he pleaded guilty to drunkenly dragging his pregnant girlfriend through Yellowknife's downtown core on April 15.

"I would just like to apologize," the man told the court as he was sentenced. "If I was sober I would never have done this ... I would have been thinking better."

Witnesses saw the man holding his girlfriend "in an aggressive manner" near TD bank, according to the statement of facts that Crown attorney Wendy Miller read in court.

During the incident, the man told those witnesses he was taking his girlfriend to the drunk tank because she was intoxicated and talking about committing suicide.

He was then observed pulling her in a direction away from the RCMP detachment, which is when police were called by a passerby who had been watching.

His girlfriend did not provide a statement to the police on the incident.

Miller said the man had a "significant criminal record" consisting of 74 previous convictions, most of which were for violating court conditions.

Defence lawyer Nikolaus Homberg said the man had been together with his girlfriend for eight months and they were expecting a baby.

Judge Christine Gagnon told the man he should be sober and gentle with his girlfriend.

The man was also charged with being found drunk in a restaurant in April, which went against a court condition ordering him not to consume alcohol. As well, he was charged with assaulting a police officer stemming from an April 21 incident, where he spat on a police officer after being arrested for drunkenly causing a disturbance at the John Howard Society.

The man pleaded guilty to all charges.

He has spent 28 days in custody since he was found drunk in the restaurant, which Gagnon considered time served for the assault charge on the RCMP officer.

He was then given a sentence of one day for breaking court conditions, and 60 days for assaulting his girlfriend.