By DEAN PRITCHARD Winnipeg Sun A teenager convicted of a violent home invasion and stabbing has dodged a jail sentence for the second time.
The 17-year-old boy pleaded guilty last year to break, enter and commit aggravated assault and was sentenced to two years' supervised probation.
The Crown appealed the sentence, arguing it was unfit.
The Manitoba Court of Appeal agreed, but in a decision released yesterday dismissed the appeal, ruling jail time would impede the first-time offender's rehabilitation.
"Youths who are placed in custody are those most often criminalized in their thinking," wrote Justice Alan MacInnes, speaking for the appeal court. "To put the (youth) into open custody at this point in time would expose him, a non-criminalized individual with a tendency to follow, to the company of others who are criminalized in their thinking."
Letters of support from the teen's employer, teachers and family described him as a quiet, polite young man at little risk of being drawn into a life of crime.
MacInnes said an appropriate sentence for the boy would have been six months' custody and community supervision -- had the sentence been imposed last year.
But since his arrest and sentencing, the boy has moved outside of the city with his mother, returned to school full-time, and complied with all conditions of his probation.
McInnes said placing the boy in jail would uproot him from his home and the guidance of his mother and interrupt his schooling.
At a sentencing hearing last summer, court heard the boy and another accused had agreed to stab a friend's stepfather after she claimed he had been beating her.
Intimidation
When it came time to carry out the attack, the boys decided they would only use the knives for intimidation. On June 17, 2007, they entered the man's home through the kitchen, where one of the teens stabbed a cat, attracting the attention of the victim.
The boys were in the process of fleeing when the victim grabbed the accused by the shoulder. In the process of pushing him away, the accused stabbed the victim once in the back.
The second teen stabbed him four times -- once in the chest and three times in the back -- before the teens fled in a waiting car.
The victim spent a week in hospital.
the winnipeg sandbox
