LAC LA BICHE - A man from the Lac La Biche area has plead guilty to several charges, including a domestic assault that involved forcing kitty litter into the mouth of his one-time common law partner.
Joey Whitford will spend another five months behind bars, part of a global 12-month sentence that includes time the 33-year-old has already spent in jail prior to last Tuesday's court day in Lac La Biche Provincial Court.
Whitford plead guilty to assault and breach of court order charges stemming from two separate incidents involving a one-time common law partner, and the mother to four of his seven children.
It has been access to those children, said Whitford's lawyer Patrice Taylor, that lead to arguments between her client and the woman.
"His big worry is that he doesn't want his kids taken into care," said Taylor, saying the victim won't agree to take the matter to a family court, only wants to allow access to the children in her own home, and continues to contact her client even though he has been given no-contact orders by the courts. Arguing that the fights leading to his arrest — one on Sep. 24 of last year, and another on Oct. 10 — were started by both parties, Taylor told court "they didn't occur in a vacuum." She explained that the "context" of the incidents also included "arguments she was having with him."
Victim blaming, countered Crown Prosecutor James Wilson, referring to Whitford as a "repeat violent offender" who has not been deterred by previous convictions for similar crimes in his past.
"There is no room for victim-blaming here," said Wilson, citing Whitford's lengthy criminal record and repeated convictions for attacking the same woman, despite court orders and jail time. "The system has failed miserably to protect the victim from the violent hands of her previous domestic partner.... he punched her and shoved kitty litter into her mouth to the point where she couldn't breathe and thought she was gong to die... No one deserves to be treated that way."
Judge Ivan Ladouceur agreed. He said that punching a woman was an aggravating factor in the assault convictions, but the use of kitty litter elevates the matter even further.
"Sticking kitty litter in her mouth is very degrading," he told Whitford, who was appearing in court on a telephone connection from the Edmonton Young Offenders Centre, where he has been housed because of occupancy issues at the Edmonton Remand Centre due to COVID-19 measures. "That shows no respect."
Ladouceur sentenced Whitford to a total of 300 days in jail on the four guilty pleas. As of last Tuesday, Whitford had been credited for 141 days in custody, leaving 159 to serve.
