Axeman tried to chop down door at Kitchener motel, court told

A man living at the Weber Inn in Kitchener took a dispute with a neighbour to another level.

“He exited his motel room wielding an axe, went to the neighbouring door and tried to chop the door down,” said Crown prosecutor Simon McNaughton. “He hit it about 15 times.”

While striking the door, the man told occupants of the motel room, “I’ll give you to the count of three or else,” Kitchener court was told on Monday.

When a crowd formed at the motel on Weber Street East, the man, 47, walked toward a person while holding the axe in a “threatening manner.”

A police tactical unit arrested him at the motel. It happened on the night of Dec. 28. The exact nature of the dispute was unclear. No one was injured.

“It was a situation that could have escalated gravely out of hand,” said Justice Craig Parry. “Somebody could have been gravely hurt.”

The man told the judge he is “remorseful and embarrassed.”

He pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon and mischief. He spent 48 days in jail before pleading guilty and was sentenced to time served.

Parry ordered him to give a DNA sample for the national database and do 35 hours of community service. Each hour of counselling he takes counts as an hour of community service. He has struggled with mental-health issues and drug abuse.

The man will be on probation for 18 months. He was on probation at the time with a term to not possess weapons.

He remains under a weapons ban, “which obviously includes an axe when you’re not chopping wood,” the judge said.