Kids get help after seeing dad beaten

Two children are now receiving counselling after seeing their father beaten by two men outside their home on the Penticton Indian Reserve last summer.

Cody Anthony George, 26, was sentenced on Monday in provincial court in Penticton to four months’ house arrest for his part in the attack. He was originally charged with aggravated assault, but pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of common assault.

Co-accused Warren Taylor Johannesen-Quail pleaded guilty to the same offence in November and received a 37-day jail sentence.

Judge Greg Koturbash considered sending George to jail too, but cited his lack of a criminal record, difficult upbringing, aboriginal heritage and the need to support his family as mitigating factors, and instead imposed the sentence of house arrest.

“I can’t imagine witnessing my parent getting beaten by two individuals,” Koturbash told him.

“I can’t imagine what went through the minds of these children. Think about your own children witnessing something like that, thinking that their dad is potentially going to die or be killed by these two individuals.”

Court heard George and Johannesen-Quail arrived at the victim’s home on Green Mountain Road on July 1, 2014, and accused the man of having an affair with a friend of theirs.

The two assailants told the victim’s kids, a nine-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl, to go in the house, then “proceeded to attack” their dad, Crown counsel Ann Lerchs explained.

He ended up on the ground and attempted to protect his head, but didn’t fight back, she continued.

“He was trying to play possum so they would stop the beating and leave,” Lerchs said.

The victim was left with “serious bruising” to his face and upper body, but has since recovered, she added, while the kids, one of whom watched the incident through a window while the other heard the commotion, were “fairly traumatized” and are now in counselling.

Lerchs asked for a 90-day jail sentence.

Defence counsel John Stowell said the incident was “entirely out of character” for his client, who “got stupid because of alcohol.”

“He regrets more than anything that the children were looking out the window,” the lawyer said.

Stowell asked for a conditional discharge, which would have given his client the opportunity to have the offence cleared from his record if he abided by strict probationary terms.

Koturbash, however, said that punishment wouldn’t fit the crime.

“A clear message has to be sent to the community that you cannot resort to violence to address issues of infidelity,” said the judge.

House arrest, he added, is a form of incarceration with a number of conditions, including abstention from alcohol.

“If you breach any of the terms of this order, there is a presumption that you will serve the remainder of your sentence in jail,” Koturbash told George.

“You’ll lose your job, you’ll be away from your kids. All sorts of bad things are going to happen.”