The man accused of sending a man to hospital with serious head injuries has been sentenced to 15 months in jail, with credit for time served and an 18 month probation. The wife of the victim, Dawn Mackay, says she couldn’t believe the verdict when Chief Crown Prosecutor Steven Hinkley told her.
“I’m devastated; I’m in shock. It’s like my whole moral fibre of who I am and my belief in the justice system has been broken. I feel like I’m afraid for other people; I’m afraid he’s not going to be able to get the help he needs.”
45 year old John St. Jean remains in the psychiatric ward at the Alberta Hospital in Edmonton and Mackay says he’ll never be himself again due to frontal lobe damage.
“He’s very confused, very agitated, very violent. It’s like there’s no buffer anymore; he doesn’t have any sense of right and wrong anymore; he can’t formulate any concrete ideas.”
Now 25Â year old Kyle Douglas Giroux has been in custody since the April 2nd incident outside a Mac’s Convenience Store in Grande Prairie. Mackay had hoped he would receive a two year sentence for aggravated assault and breach of probation, long enough for the repeat offender to get some counselling.