Sydney man sentenced for assault with baseball bat

A Sydney man who had been the subject of an arrest warrant in connection with an assault with baseball bat was sentenced Thursday to a provincial jail.

Joshua Ryan Burns, 26, of Charlotte Street, was sentenced after pleading guilty to the assault with a weapon, failing to attend court, assault, and uttering a threat. The offences occurred between November 2016 and November 2017 in Sydney and Glace Bay.

Prosecutor Lisa MacPhee told the court that the assault with the bat occurred shortly after midnight on Hillside Court in Sydney.

The female victim told police that a melee broke out involving some 12 males including her male partner. In a bid to retrieve her partner from the fracas, the woman said she got hit in the face with the bat, injuring her nose and right eye.

Defence lawyer David Iannetti admitted that his client did strike the woman but it was the woman’s partner who arrived at the party with a beer in one hand and a bat in the other. The fight erupted shortly after his arrival.

The other assault occurred in 2016 and involved the female partner of Burns. The couple recently began a family with the birth of their first child.

MacPhee and Iannetti jointly recommended a sentence of eight months less the time Burns spent on remand. The sentence imposed equaled two months and two weeks.

In addition, Burns is to complete a 24-month probation period during which he is to take all counselling as recommended by his probation officer.

He is also to submit a DNA sample to the national registry and is banned from possessing firearms or explosives for 10 years.