Man gets jail time for groping shopper

HALIFAX — A Hammonds Plains man found guilty of groping a woman at a Bedford department store has been handed a four-month jail sentence.

Brian James MacDonald, 27, was convicted of sexual assault in January following a trial in Halifax provincial court.

MacDonald, who is appealing the conviction, was sentenced recently by Judge Amy Sakalauskas.

The judge gave MacDonald 48 days of remand credit, for a net sentence of 72 days in custody.

Sakalauskas made the jail time consecutive to a 28month prison sentence MacDonald is already serving after pleading guilty to two counts of dangerous driving causing death and one of dangerous driving causing bodily harm from a fatal crash in Lower Sackville in October 2017.

After he does his jail time, MacDonald will be on probation for two years. The judge also ordered him to provide a DNA sample and register as a sex offender for 10 years.

The complainant told the court MacDonald brushed his hand against her buttocks as he walked past her in the women’s clothing section at Walmart on the evening of March 18, 2017.

A few minutes later, she said, MacDonald came up in front of her out of nowhere and grabbed her genitals and one of her breasts.

The woman said she screamed as loud as she could and MacDonald ran away. Security video showed him running out the front door of the store with his hood up over his head.

MacDonald turned himself in about a month later after Halifax Regional Police posted his photo on social media.