CASE STUDY: Conditional Discharge – Assault Causing Bodily Harm

Mr. R was a skier, a hard worker, and was no criminal. He lived with his partner in her home, alongside her two children. Every day he left early for work, where he’d been passing on his love of skiing as the director of a resort for close to a decade. He hadn’t graduated high school, and yet he’d made a comfortable life for himself.

Whenever Mr. R and his partner got into an argument, he typically tried to leave the house for a moment to cool down, a commendable method to avoid arguing in the heat of the moment. His partner, however, was usually concerned that when he left, he might not come back and often grabbed onto him to prevent him from leaving.

On the night of the incident, Mr. R and his partner began to argue while in bed, and Mr. R began to leave to get ready for work. As per usual, his partner grabbed onto him while he was getting ready, scratching his legs, and causing a struggle as he tried to pull free, injuring her. Hours after the incident, when Mr. R was at work, the police were called.

Mr. R had no prior criminal record and he wanted to keep it that way. As a ski director, responsible for interacting with all kinds of clients, he needed to maintain his clean record. When he met with our team, he told us he knew it might have to go to trial to reach his goal. We started planning for how to handle the situation both before a trial and during a potential trial.

Both the Crown and defence counsel prefer rehabilitative orders to incarceration or criminal sanctions. An accused that agrees to participate in counselling, community service hours, and agreements to uphold the peace, saves the government money and helps put the accused back in society where they can be a productive citizen. If we could show that Mr. R is a family man willing to follow court orders to participate in such programs, we could help Mr. R avoid overly strict sanctions.