WESTLOCK – A Westlock man who begged a provincial court judge to accept his guilty plea but wouldn’t admit to the key fact of the crime, namely that he spit in the face of an RCMP officer, will remain behind bars for another week and has been advised to get a lawyer.
Appearing in Westlock Provincial Court Dec. 7 via CCTV from the Edmonton Remand Centre, James Gregory West told Judge Jacqueline Schaffter “he was tired of all the crap I’ve been put through” and implored her to accept his guilty plea to assaulting a peace officer — a plea she wouldn’t take after West flatly denied he spat in the face of an RCMP officer and only “blew him a kiss.”
Crown prosecutor Brett Grierson told court that around 10 p.m., Dec. 1, 2022, West was involved in a bail hearing at the Westlock RCMP Detachment and was scheduled to be released. As the officer escorted him back to cells to await the paperwork, West “became belligerent” and shouted numerous obscenities at the officer.
“The accused was told to go sit down and he leaned in and spit in the officer’s face, thereby committing an assault on a police officer,” said Grierson.
West said he only “blew a kiss at him and winked at him” but never “spit at him” and said he understood how it could be misconstrued when viewing the incident from the CCTV footage.
“And then he beat me. It doesn’t say that in there,” said West. “I’m trying to take responsibility for my actions. I blew a kiss at him and he may have thought it was a spit. I had a screwdriver in my pocket at the time and could have assaulted him, but I didn’t.”
Judge Schaffter said although she knew he wanted to “get this over with” she couldn’t “accept your guilty plea if you didn’t spit at him” and set the case over to Dec. 14 in Westlock Provincial Court, the final sitting before 2023.
“You’ll have a lawyer by then and I want to put this over to then to assist you. If after you’ve reviewed everything with the lawyer and you still want to enter a guilty plea, you can. And if not, your lawyer will speak to your release,” said Judge Schaffter.
