Man convicted in machete attack
Brandan Bungay sentenced to two years plus a day for assault causing bodily harm
One of four people charged in a bloody machete attack on a young man in 2015 was sentenced in provincial court in Gander on Thursday to two years plus one day.
Brandan Bungay of Indian Bay will serve his sentence in a federal prison.
The sentence was based on a joint submission from Crown prosecutor Douglas Howell and defence lawyer Desmond Parsons.
According to the agreed statement of facts, the male victim “sustained significant injuries, including a scalp laceration” and two other injuries that required surgery.
Bungay was originally charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault. He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of assault causing bodily harm (an offence included in the aggravated assault section of the Criminal Code) in February, and the Crown withdrew the attempted murder charge.
Four people were charged in the incident, which occurred at the Silent Witness Memorial near Gander on June 10, 2015.
According to the facts of the case, one of the co-accused, James Rowsell, who was selling drugs at the time, believed the victim had tried to rob one of his “workers” a few days earlier. Rowsell’s girlfriend, Kelsey Moyles, was in touch with the victim through Facebook and offered to set the man up.
Moyles drove an SUV to Rowsell’s house in Lewisporte to pick him up. They then drove to Gander, where they enlisted Bungay’s help. Bungay and Rowsell were hidden in the back of the SUV with machetes when Moyles and a female minor drove to the victim’s house to pick him up.
They told the man they were driving to Gambo, but they pulled off at the Silent Witness Memorial site. Bungay pushed the victim out of the vehicle. During the attack, Bungay hit the man in the head and on the arm with a machete. Rowsell hit the victim in the back with his machete.
Moyles and the girl stayed in the vehicle and yelled for the men to get back in. They drove away, leaving the bleeding man behind.
The injured man was seen wandering along the TransCanada Highway, but authorities could not locate him until he was later admitted as a walk-in patient at James Memorial Hospital in Gander.
Rowsell was sentenced to one year’s time served plus two years’ probation in November 2016 for assault causing bodily alarm.
Moyles is charged with aggravated assault. Her case is scheduled for trial at Supreme Court on June 19.
The teenage girl who accompanied Moyles was also charged, but she cannot be identified because she is a youth.