Crown seeking federal time for stream trail attack
Jonathan Kelly will find out Tuesday how much longer he will have to spend behind bars for mugging a 16-year-old girl on the Corner Brook Stream Trail in broad daylight last summer.
Kelly was on probation when he grabbed the girl from behind moments after passing her on the popular walking trail in the heart of Corner Brook in the middle of the afternoon last July 24.
He wasn’t arrested until Nov. 14, after DNA evidence collected at the scene of the attack connected him to the crime. On Dec. 7, Kelly entered guilty pleas to attempted robbery and breaching his probation order.
In custody since his arrest, the 29-year-old was back in provincial court Friday to hear the facts of the case read into the record and for both the Crown and defence to make their submission on sentencing to Judge Wayne Gorman.
Before the facts were read, Kelly also pleaded guilty to stealing two pairs of sneakers from Wal-Mart last April and another breach of probation in relation to that. Those charges had been laid prior to the incident on the trail.
Crown attorney Trina Simms, who asked Gorman to incarcerate Kelly for between 30-36 months, read the statement of facts that were agreed to by Kelly and defence lawyer Peter Chaffey.
After he was arrested, Kelly admitted to trying to rob the girl, said Simms. He told the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary that he had no intention whatsoever of sexually assaulting her and only wanted to take her things so he could sell them for money to feed his addiction to the narcotic pain relievers morphine and Dilaudid.
Simms told the court the girl had been walking from her home towards Margaret Bowater Park when she passed a man on the Corner Brook Stream Trail. After he passed her, the girl said, she was grabbed and dragged into the woods.
She told Kelly to take her bag and iPod as he continued to pull her off the trail. He released her and fled without taking anything from the girl when others on the trail responded to her cries for help.
Despite an immediate police search of the area, including the use of a police dog, Kelly was not located the day of the offence. Police did retrieve items belonging to the victim and sunglasses and a towel believed to belong to the assailant from the scene.
On July 25, a witness spoke to police, telling investigators that they had encountered a sweaty and seemingly agitated Kelly on the day of the attack. Kelly indicated he wanted to get rid of the shirt and sweatpants he had been wearing July 24. Those items were retrieved by police from a garbage bag. Investigators sent the items to the police crime lab for the DNA analysis, which eventually linked Kelly to the attempted robbery.
Simms noted Kelly has a fivepage criminal record for various offences.
Simms also referred to a victim impact statement provided by the girl, who suffered minor cuts and bruises from being dragged into the woods and psychological harm from the incident that persists.
The girl said her life was changed significantly in the five minutes or so it took for Kelly to attack her. She experiences anxiety and panic attacks, has a substantial fear of leaving her home and has developed a fear of people.
Simms also reminded Gorman about how this highly publicized incident unnerved the entire community, especially during the nearly four months until an arrest was made.
Chaffey asked Gorman to imprison Kelly for between 15-17 months. He said most of the cases on which the Crown has based its submission involved more serious circumstances.
He said Kelly never used a weapon and the level of violence used was not as severe as there was in the precedent cases cited by Simms. He added that Kelly was co-operative with police after his arrest, pleaded guilty and had a mostly positive pre-sentence report.
Chaffey argued that although Kelly has served an intermittent jail sentence before, the court could exercise leniency, since this would be his first significantly lengthy jail term.
Simms also asked for three years of probation, while Chaffey asked for two years of probation.