Court hears teen girl participated in stabbing in bid to impress mother

One of four girls who participated in stabbing one woman and beating another woman within the same hour was appeasing her mother, who said she wanted to see “a good scrap,” a Saskatoon courtroom heard on Thursday.

The details of last April’s rash of violence at Leif Erickson Place, a townhouse complex in Saskatoon’s Westmount neighbourhood, were heard Thursday in Saskatoon youth court, where a 16-year-old girl was being sentenced for her involvement.

The teen, who cannot be named under provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, pleaded guilty to assault and robbery against one woman, aggravated assault against another woman, five breaches and one failure to attend court.

Reading out the facts, Crown prosecutor Victoria Kindrachuk said police pulled up to a group of girls surrounding a woman and beating her at the intersection of Rusholme Road and Avenue O North on April 28, 2019.

As the teen assailants scattered, officers heard the offender yell “Don’t dress like that around here,” to the victim, who was bleeding from 10 stab wounds.

Shortly after, officers saw a naked woman running nearby. They learned there was a disagreement between her and the same group, including the girl and her mother, over a cellphone and a boy.

The mother urged the teen girls to attack the woman, Kindrachuk said. The victim reported being stomped on the chest and kicked, then chased down and stripped to her underwear in a park.

Judge Sanjeev Anand called it “degrading behaviour,” sentencing the girl to two months in secure custody, six months of open custody, four months of community supervision and 12 months on probation.

The joint sentencing submission from the Crown and defence reflects the girl’s time spent on remand, her immaturity and the fact that she is a first-time offender who potentially has Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Anand summarized.

Court heard the girl, who was 15 at the time, told police she was in a youth gang and that she consumed alcohol with her mother before the assaults.

Kindrachuk said the teen was intoxicated during the offences and is willing to work on her alcohol addiction by entering in-patient treatment — one of her probation requirements. She also has to complete 50 hours of extracurricular activities and cannot contact any of the co-accused teens, who Kindrachuk called “a very volatile group of individuals.”

The teen who stabbed the woman received a slightly higher sentence: four months in secure custody, six months of open custody, five months of supervision and 12 months on probation.