Pictou man gets prison sentence for nose biting

A Pictou man convicted of aggravated assault after biting the tip of another man’s nose was sentenced to six months in prison on Tuesday afternoon.

Randall Edwin MacLean is also facing 12 months of probation, a victim surcharge of $200 that he has 24 months to pay, a DNA collection order and a 10-year firearm prohibition.

“Mr. MacLean is not a bad man, your honour. He’s a good man who did a bad thing. His life has been significantly overturned and I submit this is a case where mercy should walk hand in hand with justice,” MacLean’s lawyer Joel Sellers said during the sentencing.

MacLean was charged in October 2014 following a police investigation that found a man suffered a serious injury to the tip of his nose following an altercation at a deceased person’s wake in a Pictou home.

He pleaded not guilty to the charge, with witnesses during the trial stating he was removed from the home on Oct. 10 because he wouldn’t leave on his own. While at the door, witnesses said he bit the victim’s nose.

MacLean said during the trial that he was in the process of leaving after being asked to do so, and leaned closer to the victim to hear what he was saying. MacLean said he was hit in the head, and during the altercation, latched onto the victim with his mouth in an attempt to balance himself.

In delivering the verdict in October 2016, Judge Del Atwood said the evidence at the trial showed MacLean had been drinking alcohol before he arrived at the home and consumed more alcohol while he was there, as did other people.

Sellers said MacLean hadn’t been doing anything dangerous or threatening anyone’s safety before he was “manhandled” at the wake. Sellers said it wasn’t premeditated and was a spur-ofthe-moment reaction, “albeit the wrong reaction.”

MacLean is remorseful, Sellers said, quoting MacLean telling police on Oct. 11 that he was disappointed in himself for getting himself into that situation and he felt sorry for the victim.

MacLean addressed the court during the hearing, stating that he is “very sorry for everyone being involved in this, especially my mother.”

He feels bad about everything that happened, he added.

“I’d like to say this was a funeral I went to, your honour. This wasn’t a party. When I went there … I was in sorrow and I’m still in sorrow.” MacLean said he feels bad that the court thinks that he could “bite somebody’s nose off,” adding that he “did not bite his nose off.” He’d like to see the bite patterns from the victim’s nose examined to prove his innocence, he told the court.

“It’s horrific, it’s brutal, but I swear that it was not something that I intentionally did. And I would never do it.”

Crown attorney Patrick Young said MacLean’s remarks to the court show a lack of remorse, stating that it was a minimization of his actions and a denial of his role in injury to the victim.

Judge Del Atwood described the aggravated assault as being at the lower end of the range of seriousness for this type of offense, noting it was, in his view, of a short-term duration and didn’t involve a weapon. He also noted MacLean’s previous convictions are limited with many years in between offenses.

It was also taken into account that MacLean has been subject to “moderately stringent conditions” since October 2014.