Partner of murdered Hamilton man jailed for attack

ST. CATHARINES — Unresolved emotional trauma from the murder of an estranged spouse did not make savagely slashing a woman with a broken beer bottle at a Niagara-on-the-Lake party any less heinous, a court has heard.

Collea Dubinsky, 39, was charged with aggravated assault in August 2016, less than six months after a 31year-old man was sentenced in Hamilton to life in prison without parole for 15 years for the murder of Kadar Omar.

Omar, 33, was beaten and repeatedly stabbed in March 2013. His fingers had been cut off and his apartment had been scrubbed with chlorine. His fingers, and the murder weapon, have never been found.

In Ontario Court of Justice on Wednesday, Dubinsky, the dead man’s former partner and mother of his two children, was sentenced to 12 months behind bars on the aggravated assault charge.

Defence lawyer Lauren Wilhelm had asked the judge to consider a 90-day intermittent jail term, saying her client was suffering from undiagnosed mental health issues relating to her husband’s murder when she struck a 39-year-old woman in the head with a beer bottle and slashed her left arm with the broken glass.

Despite the violent conduct, she told Judge Joseph Nadel, an intermittent sentence was warranted given the defendant’s unique circumstances.

Assistant Crown attorney Graeme Leach, in requesting the 12month jail term, told the judge a civilized society cannot sustain itself if people use weapons to settle disputes, particularly when the weapon’s use results in the maiming and disfiguring of an individual. The judge agreed. “In my view, 90 days is simply an inadequate sanction for the viciousness and severity of this attack,” Nadel said. The judge said the two women, whom he described as having a “mutual and visceral dislike for each other” since they had both had an intimate relationship with the same man, ran into each other during an open-to-all party held at a rural farm property in Niagaraon-the-Lake.

“There is more than a suggestion this was a consensual fight,” Nadel said.

The victim sustained several lacerations to her head, seven torn tendons on her left arm, and a finger was almost severed.

“Physicians used scores and scores of stitches and staples to effect repairs to her arm and hand,” the judge said.

Court was told the woman has extensive nerve damage to her arm and her employment options are now limited as she is no longer able to do manual labour.

The victim, also a resident of Hamilton, said simple daily living tasks have become “burdensome.”