SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A Fort McPherson man who sexually assaulted a woman in 2008 had his jail time doubled after the Supreme Court of Appeal granted the Crown's application to overturn his previous sentence Jan. 18.

Archie James Perry Jerome, 52, was found guilty by of sexual assault on

Feb. 3, 2010 after a three-day Supreme Court jury trial.

Justice Donald Cooper sentenced Jerome to a "blended" sentence of two years in prison and two years probation. Jerome also received a 10-year firearms prohibition and has been added to the National Sex Offender Registry for 20 years.

According to the trial's transcript, on Aug. 29, 2008, Jerome sexually assaulted a 20-year old female who passed out in his home after a night of drinking with friends.

After midnight the woman awoke to find Jerome on top of her having intercourse with her. She yelled at him to get off, and he did so immediately.

She called her friends, who picked her up minutes after the assault. Tests later found Jerome's semen inside the woman's vagina. The jury did not accept Jerome's defence that, after drinking vodka and becoming intoxicated, he had consensual sex with the woman.

The Crown sought a four to five year prison sentence, and filed an appeal on March 5, 2010.

On Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Janice Walsh told the three-person appeals court, comprised of Justices Virginia Schuler, Frans Slatter and J.D. Bruce McDonald, that Justice Cooper's sentence was "demonstrably unfit" and not a "fair or appropriate sentence."

Walsh argued that Cooper took into consideration Jerome's residential school experience as a factor under section 718.2 of the

Criminal Code of Canada, which allows other considerations to factor into a sentence.

In this case, Walsh argued Cooper had no evidence or submissions before him to support the divergence from the three-year starting point sentence for sexual assault established in the 1985 Sandercock decision in Alberta.

The court agreed, and imposed a new four-year sentence minus credit for time already served.

Reading from the Feb. 3 transcript of Jerome's sentence, McDonald quoted Cooper as explaining "this is a court and not a facility for psychology."

However, Cooper still gave weight to the residential school experience that allegedly left Jerome with "deep-seated psychological issues, that he either fights against successfully or succumbs to from time to time."

McDonald said that using this as a factor in sentencing was "quite a leap" given that there was no evidence based on the trial's transcript that Jerome's residential school experience had affected his behaviour.

Defence lawyer Thomas Boyd argued the judge was entitled to grant the original sentence under the Criminal Code, and that recognizing residential school experience would not be a "floodgates outcome" to diverge from minimal sentences.

McDonald disagreed, and argued that the sentence was an insult to residential school survivors that struggle to keep out of trouble.

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