Man who attacked friend with hatchet faces lengthy sentence

With two serious assaults already to his name, a 26-year-old man added a third in 2014 while heavily intoxicated.

This time, the victim was a friend and the result was six blows with a hatchet that left the man permanently injured.

And, this time, the Crown wants a far longer sentence for the offence.

To date, Nolan McNab’s longest custody sentence was 15 months, despite two previous aggravated assaults on his criminal record.

In this latest case, also an aggravated assault, the Crown has asked the court to impose a seven-year sentence less remand credit.

“I think that’s a theme, my Lady, that is a concern, is the effect of the combination of alcohol and violence with Mr. McNab,” Crown prosecutor Mitchell Miller told the court in August when first requesting that term.

Despite McNab’s earlier guilty plea, the case is still before the court for a number of reasons, including the preparation of a Gladue report and an issue that arose when McNab at one point claimed he’d acted in self defence.

But on Wednesday, defence lawyer Estes Fonkalsrud told the court his client has since accepted there are no grounds on which to base a self-defence argument — most notably because of his level of intoxication.

“I have no recollection of the altercation,” McNab admitted on Wednesday when questioned by Regina Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Janet McMurtry on his guilty plea.

Having heard submissions, McMurtry reserved decision on sentence to Thursday.

Court previously heard McNab committed two previous aggravated assaults, one in which he struck another male several times in the head with a baseball bat — reportedly while blackout drunk — and a second where he so badly assaulted another man that the complainant needed plastic surgery to repair facial damage including to his nose, a part of which was nearly completely torn off.

Court heard McNab had been drinking in the second case too.

In the latest instance, McNab was among several people at a house in the 1400 block of Elliott Street on July 15, 2014. At one point, he was seen leaving the backyard with the complainant, said to have been his friend.

When someone went to check on them shortly after, the complainant was found covered in blood with serious gashes — six in total — to his head and back, from what Miller described as a “hatchet attack.”

The man was taken to hospital where he received multiple staples and two surgeries, including one to remove a portion of his skull and replace it with a metal plate.

Miller said the man suffered irreversible damage and continues to have difficulty with speech.

McNab was intoxicated when arrested a few minutes after the assault.

Fonkalsrud requested a fouryear sentence less remand credit. He spoke to his client’s troubled past — one he said is not uncommon among Aboriginal offenders — which includes family dysfunction, exposure to abuse and racism, lack of resources, poverty, hopelessness and the overall fallout from residential schools.

Fonkalsrud argued his client stands the best chance of making a positive change by having access to programming in the community — something he said would not be achieved through a lengthy prison term.

The man was taken to hospital where he (had) two surgeries, including one to remove a portion of his skull.