Jail term for man who stabbed sex offender

A St. Catharines man who stabbed a child molester in the head and back multiple times with a kitchen knife will spend the next eight months behind bars. Assistant Crown attorney Mark Dean had asked the judge to consider a jail term of 12 to 15 months, saying that acts of vigilantism cannot be condoned by the courts. Defence counsel Mark Evans, however, argued his client has intellectual limitations and was prompted by a woman to attack the 38-year-old man. Judge Joseph Nadel agreed the defendant’s moral culpability is mitigated by his intellectual deficiencies and by the woman he described as “manipulative.” That said, the judge agreed with the Crown that the savageness of the attack warranted a significant jail term. “Society can’t function if people take the law into their own hands,” Nadel said. “This is not an easy case. I need to sanction (the defendant) in a fair fashion and the sentence must be proportionate to the gravity of the offence.” The 31-year-old, who had no prior criminal record, was originally charged with attempted murder following the November 2015 assault. He pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated assault at an earlier court date and was sentenced Thursday in an Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines. The stabbing victim was subsequently convicted of child sex charges. The name of the defendant is not being published in order to protect the identity of the victims of the sexual assault. The defendant told the judge he was sorry for what happened. “This will never happen again,” he said. “If I find out anything again, I will contact the police and not take it on with my own hands.” Court was told the stabbing victim sustained 17 lacerations to his head, neck, back and arm after he was attacked from behind. “There was a great deal of blood,” the judge said. “The injuries were not life threatening but they were serious.” The judge noted the defendant will likely have a difficult time behind bars. “There’s a real risk he may be taken advantage of and I regret that,” the judge said. “But, at the same time, I cannot discount what he did.” During the stabbing investigation, Niagara Regional Police heard allegations about the possible sexual assault of a young child. The follow up investigation, dubbed Project Iceberg, revealed a 33-yearold Niagara mother had exploited her daughters for her own gain, including making her four-year-old available to be sexually assaulted by others. She pleaded guilty in January to more than a dozen sex crimes. The Crown is seeking to have the woman declared a dangerous offender, which means she could be jailed indefinitely. That case remains before the courts. The mother was one of six people arrested on 77 charges in August 2016 following a nine-month investigation. Six children, aged four to 17, were identified and rescued.