Man gets five years in random home invasion
Saskatoon court hears victim told police that stranger ‘tried to rape me’
A Saskatoon judge ordered a fiveyear penitentiary sentence for a man who attacked a woman during a random home invasion, leaving her severely traumatized.
“He tried to rape me,” court heard the woman told police after Lawrence Jade Shingoose burst through her door in the Fairhaven neighbourhood in the early morning of April 12, 2015.
After returning home from a night out with friends, the woman heard someone knocking on her door. She assumed it was her roommate, but a man she had never seen before was standing there, asking to talk to her. When she refused, he pushed his way into the home.
The woman did everything she could to fight back, including biting her attacker’s fingers when he tried to muffle her screams, Crown prosecutor Dan Dahl said during the sentencing hearing in Saskatoon provincial court.
A knife fell out of Shingoose’s pocket when he exposed his penis during the struggle in the victim’s bathroom, according to the facts presented at the hearing.
Dahl said Shingoose stole the woman’s purse, containing her cellphone, on his way out the door. Police were able to make an arrest based on the fingerprints he left on her phone. Shingoose pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon and breaking and entering to commit robbery and sexual assault. In exchange for the plea, the Crown stayed a charge of sexual assault with a weapon.
Dahl proposed the five-year sentence, which defence lawyer Kim Armstrong did not contest. Dahl also argued that Shingoose should not receive enhanced credit for the time he spent on remand because he caused delays in the court process by firing lawyers. Armstrong said it wasn’t a tactic to get enhanced credit; rather, her client was having trouble coming to terms with what he had done.
“He can’t believe he committed something like this,” she said.
Judge Marilyn Gray gave Shingoose credit of 1.5 days for each day of the 18 months he spent on remand, for a total of 27 months.
Shingoose was “acting out” and drinking to deal with the pain of a stressful relationship with his father, Armstrong said, adding he regrets what happened and the suffering he caused the victim.
Shingoose sat with his head down
He can’t believe he committed something like this.
during his court appearance. As he left the prisoner’s box, the victim’s brother shouted, “I’ll see you when you get out Mr. Shingoose.”
The courts take a very “dim view” of home invasions, and sentences must ensure that others don’t commit these types of crimes, Gray told Shingoose before wishing him luck in the future.