SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A Yellowknife grandmother won't be spending any time in jail for slapping her nine-year-old grandson twice in the face, causing his nose to bleed while she was babysitting the youth last year.

Despite Crown prosecutor Marc Lecorre's recommendation of two to three months in jail for what he described as "utter disdain for her grandson," Judge Bernadette Schmaltz imposed an 18-month suspended sentence on the 49-year-old woman, who was drunk at the time she slapped the child.

Recounting the facts of the case, Schmaltz told the court that on May 9, 2010, the woman was babysitting her grandson at her Sissons Court residence while she was drinking with some other men. Prior to being slapped, her grandson called his mother crying to come home and asked her to pick him up. At the woman's trial, the mother testified she could hear the grandmother swearing at the boy on the other end of the phone. The grandmother grabbed the phone and tried to hang it up, but failed to do so properly. The mother could still hear the woman continue to swear at her son, so she took a cab to the residence but didn't arrive in time to prevent the assault.

Schmaltz chastised the woman for damaging the trust she had with her grandson.

"(You) have to stop and think what we're teaching our children," Schmaltz said. "You took it out on him, and he didn't cause (anything)."

Defence lawyer Thomas Boyd said he wasn't justifying the woman's actions, but explained she was having trouble managing the boy, who he said would burn "cookies and papers," be difficult when asked to take a shower and put on his pyjamas, and would roam around the neighbourhood.

Boyd also said the woman gets paid for babysitting all of her seven grandchildren ranging in age from seven months to nine years old. She is still owed money from the mother for 21 days of babysitting, he added.

The woman told the court she was sorry for what she had done, and hopes that she can reconcile with her grandson. The offender admitted she needs to "grow up" and get help for her alcohol problem. She also asked to be spared from jail so she could attend a four-week counselling program near Edmonton for residential school survivors. That program begins on Jan. 23.

Schmaltz agreed and included as a condition of her suspended sentence that the woman "attend and complete" the program. The grandmother must also complete 90 hours of community service and, at her request, attend at least one Alcoholics Anonymous meeting a week when she returns from the program.

She is also ordered to have no contact with the victim unless the mother "initiates, consents and continues to consent" to the contact, and to have no contact with any children under the age of 12 if she has been drinking in the previous 24 hours, unless she is accompanied by a sober adult.

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