SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A young Yellowknife man was handed $400 in fines and ordered to pay $2,000 toward the purchase of a new vehicle after destroying a car while joy-riding.

A young Yellowknife man will have to pay out more than $2,000 in relation to a car he took out for a joy ride earlier this year. He was able to avoid jail time due to credit for time served in pretrial custody. - NNSL file photo

Desmond Nitah, 18, who plead guilty car theft as well as assault, was also sentenced by Judge Christine Gagnon to 90 days in prison. However, he won't have to serve the sentence after being granted credit for the 60 days he already spent in pretrial custody at North Slave Correctional Centre – one-and-a-half days' credit for each day spent in custody.

According to the agreed statement of facts, Nitah stole the car on May 9, 2014.

The 2008 Ford Edge had been left at Age Automotive on Kam Lake Road where Nitah worked in the tow yard. He and another man broke into the car and proceeded to joyride around Yellowknife and out to the sandpits where at one point the car became airborne and blew one of the tires on landing.

Nitah drove the car back to Age Automotive where he changed the tire and kept driving around town at speeds of more than 100 km/h before abandoning the car in the middle of Old Airport Road.

When police found the car, it was leaking fuel and one axle and wheel were broken.

The assault happened several days later on May 16, when Nitah assaulted a man who refused to buy him alcohol.

Whether Nitah punched the man or simply pushed him so he hit his head on the wall of a nearby building was never established before the court. It was accepted, however, that the man suffered a head injury which, he claimed, led to epileptic fits.

The fines and the sentence of 90 days was much more lenient than the five-to-eight months of incarceration suggested by Crown prosecutor Jennifer Bond.

In stealing the car, said Bond, Nitah showed “a significant lack of respect for the property of others … (and was) lucky that the only thing damaged was the vehicle.”

In relation to the assault, she argued, he needed a sufficiently long sentence to send the message that violence affects of others, often in more dramatic ways than we expect.

The defense responded that Nitah's pre-trial incarceration was sufficient to send a message and that fines would be the most appropriate response.

Nitah's mother, who asked not to be named, added to the appeal for leniency by explaining to the court that her son had grown up in rough circumstances.

She said that she herself had struggled with drug abuse problems and had been in trouble with the law.

“I said I'd never want that lifestyle for my son, but now here he is,” she said.

“I've changed my lifestyle and I believe my kid can do it too,” she said. “I know he can be a good person and he just needs to believe in himself and pick himself up.”

Gagnon suggested a similar thing when she addressed Nitah during sentencing.

“There's a place for you,” she said. “You just need to find it.

“If you don't know what you want in life … you can be sure of what you don't want,” she said, referring his time in jail leading up to the trial.