Judge rejects submission in road rage case

Calls proposal for house arrest ‘totally inadequate’ in incident where woman was dragged and punched

In a rare move, a judge rejected a joint submission for house arrest against a Welland man after hearing details of a road rage incident during which a woman was dragged from her car in a snowstorm and punched in the face.

“This is a violent attack, for no good reason at all, and this does nothing, in my view, to address the most important thing here, which is someone who does this should be taken off the road,” Judge Elliott Allen said in Ontario Court of Justice in St.

Catharines on Thursday after the Crown and defence requested Lewis Moore receive a four-month conditional sentence following a guilty plea to a charge of assault.

The judge described the submission as “totally inadequate” and suggested such a violent crime warranted a significant jail term and a driving prohibition.

“If you want to live in a jurisdiction where the schizophrenics go to jail and people who beat women up at the side of the road don’t, that’s fine, but I’m not having any part to do with that,” said the judge, who is not from Niagara.

Judges typically accept joint submissions proposed by the Crown and defence, unless the sitting judge feels the submission is contrary to the public interest.

Moore was arrested in November 2019 after Niagara Regional Police investigated a case of road rage that occurred during a snowstorm in Fort Erie.

Court heard a woman had been driving along Point Abino Road when she slowed to make a turn due to icy road conditions.

The woman’s driving, said assistant Crown attorney Todd Morris, caused the defendant, who was travelling two cars behind the victim, to become enraged.

“He passed the vehicle between him and the complainant unsafely, narrowly avoiding a collision with oncoming traffic,” he said.

“He drove behind the complainant, close to the rear of her vehicle, and flashed his high beams multiple times.”

The driver then passed the woman’s car at a high rate of speed.

The two motorists later met up at an intersection and the driver got out of his car and approached the woman.

The woman opened the car door and was grabbed by her jacket collar, pulled from her vehicle and punched in the face.

She attempted to break free from the man’s grip by kneeing him several times in his midsection.

The assault came to an end when the woman’s daughter attempted to intervene.

The Crown and defence had proposed a joint submission of a four-month conditional sentence, the first two months to be served under house arrest.

The judge rejected the submission and ordered the guilty plea be struck. The case is expected to return to court in March before a different judge.