Four minutes, 14 assaults, five victims turns into five months’ jail time for bar attacker

EDMONTON — A man who committed 14 assaults on five different people in under four minutes during a bar brawl in Edmonton was sentenced to five months in jail Wednesday.

Andrew Stephen MacIsaac, 33, pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm after his sucker-punch set off a brawl among patrons watching a CFL game in Caffrey’s Pub in August 2012.

MacIsaac punched, kicked, choked and kneed his way through other patrons in front of two surveillance cameras. At one point, a customer grabbed a chair from Mac Isaac as he was poised to swing it at a victim.

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Frederica Schutz told MacIsaac his actions were “cowardly, unprovoked, vicious, completely lacking in any adult self-control and frighteningly irrational.”

MacIsaac was paying his bill when brief words were exchanged at the bar and he punched one customer in the head.

Bill McGregor, a 63-year-old fellow customer, tried to intervene and received a broken orbital bone for his trouble. MacIsaac kicked McGregor repeatedly in the face as he lay on the bar’s dance floor.

“Mr. MacIsaac attacked a perfect stranger enjoying a quiet beer while watching a football game,” the judge said. “The vicious attack on Mr. McGregor was for no other reason than he was trying to stop an attack on another patron of the bar.”

Defence lawyer Akram Attia told court MacIsaac was distraught over the end of a longterm relationship at the time of the brawl.

“His temper got the better of him. The alcohol got the better of him.”

MacIsaac gave a brief apology from the prisoner’s box.

Crown prosecutor Dallas Sopko told court MacIsaac is already serving a 30-day sentence for a separate Sherwood Park, Alta., bar brawl that occurred a week before the fight at Caffrey’s.

Sopko said MacIsaac’s coaccused in the fight, Jason Ashford, received a 16-month sentence for both bar brawls the two men were involved in that week.