Too frequently our Justice System serves up a real bone-headed maneuver. In the first of (probably) many Knob Awards I offer you The Manitoba Court of Appeal. This august body decided to let the jerk in the story below serve his sentence in the community. This despite the fact he was a CHIEF when he committed the sexual assault (ummm rape, he committed rape), and that he apparently showed no remorse. Un-friggen-believable.
By DEAN PRITCHARD, SUN MEDIA
A former First Nation chief convicted of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl has won a court appeal allowing him to serve his two-year sentence in the community.
Oliver Bird, 65, pleaded guilty last spring to one count of sexual assault and was sentenced to two years of real jail time despite a joint Crown and defence recommendation that he be allowed to serve a conditional sentence in the community.
Justice Colleen Suche rejected the joint recommendation, saying Bird showed "no meaningful acceptance of responsibility for the assault."
The Manitoba Court of Appeal overturned the ruling following a hearing yesterday.
Bird was originally charged with three counts of sexual assault involving repeated incidents alleged to have occurred more than 20 years ago. He pleaded guilty to one incident in a plea bargain that spared the victim -- described in court as emotionally fragile -- from testifying.
Bird was chief of Little Black River First Nation at the time of the 1985 offence to which he pleaded guilty.
At a sentencing hearing last May, court heard the girl was living in foster care in Winnipeg when he visited her home and had forced sexual intercourse with her.
Bird pleaded guilty to the offence but claimed in a pre-sentence report to have no memory of it. He told a probation officer he only pleaded guilty at his lawyer's urging.
