Island inmate attempts suicide
Judge says jail not the place for people struggling with mental illness
A woman who spit on staff, threatened a nurse and headbutted someone while she was in jail was sentenced to another 65 days in custody.
The 29-year-old woman appeared before Chief Judge Nancy Orr in provincial court in Charlottetown recently where she changed her pleas to guilty on several charges, including assault and uttering a threat.
The Guardian has chosen not to name the woman because of her mental health issues.
The court heard that on March 12, 2015, a nurse was taking a cart around with medication at the jail when the woman asked her for an alcohol swab.
When the nurse said no, the woman swore at her and went back to her cell.
Guards called her out to put her in solitary confinement, and the woman started advancing on the nurse with her fists clenched.
“I’m going to beat you,” the woman told the nurse.
Once she was back in a cell, the woman used a mattress to block guards’ view of her.
They removed the mattress and entered the cell to find the woman with a sweater around her neck trying to strangle herself.
As the guards forcibly tried to remove it, the woman spit on one of them.
She later started banging her head against a wall and as the guards were putting her in restraints for her own protection she spit again and head-butted one of them.
The woman was then put on suicide watch.
She was three days away from her release from jail at the time.
Defence lawyer Jonathan Greenan, said his client had a history of mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and depression diagnoses.
In handing down a sentence, Orr questioned whether putting the woman in lockup was the appropriate consequence for a few swear words, but she said people in jail have to follow the jail’s rules.
“You’re in jail and you’ve lost your freedom,” Orr said.
Once again the court was seeing someone with mental health issues ending up in jail where they don’t belong, but also having to pay for their crimes, Orr said. “So, it’s a vicious circle.” Along with the jail time, Orr also ordered the woman to pay $300 in victim surcharges.