BURST
Describing as “despicable” what an American motorist did in downtown Windsor — intentionally targeting and running down a woman with his vehicle — a judge nevertheless couldn’t side with the Crown’s contention the crime deserved a long prison sentence.
The prosecution had sought a term of incarceration of up to eight years for the act of intimate partner violence, but Superior Court Justice Kelly Gorman told a sentencing hearing Wednesday that level of punishment was “simply not supported by the case law.”
At an earlier court hearing, the defence had described the Crown’s call for a four- to eight-year prison term “grossly disproportionate” to the crime.
The judge handed Shermere Coulston-Hawkins, 24, an 18-month sentence, the punishment the defence had called for.
After being given 847 days credit for 591 days spent in actual pre-sentence custody (based on a standard 1:1.5 formula used by the courts), the offender had effectively served his jail sentence.
The victim, a Belle River woman with whom the Philadelphia man had been communicating with online before visiting Canada for the first time, had been fighting at Devonshire Mall on their second date, on Dec. 23, 2023, over contents on her cellphone. Coulston-Hawkins later confessed to having choked her at the mall, an attack that was interrupted by a passerby.
Originally charged with seven criminal offences, including attempted murder, forcible confinement and aggravated assault, the young American pleaded guilty instead in May to lesser charges of dangerous driving causing bodily harm and assault.
Coulston-Hawkins, now 24, had been in custody since his arrest the day of the attack.
An aggravating factor to the crime had been that he simply abandoned the seriously injured victim on the ground after striking her with his vehicle.
The judge also noted mitigating circumstances, including that he surrendered himself to police after attending the Windsor hospital where the woman was being treated.
The “most important factors in such cases as this one,” the judge said, was sending a message to the community of denunciation and deterrence. “Other like-minded need to hear the message,” said Gorman.
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The judge also sentenced Coulston-Hawkins to three years probation, during which he is prohibited from being in Canada. But any other conditions normally attached to probation orders can’t apply here — they don’t carry into foreign jurisdictions like the United States.
The court heard Coulston-Hawkins had taken an anger management course during his lengthy period in pre-sentence custody. The plan on Wednesday was to turn him over to federal immigration authorities and deport him back to the U.S.
A tiny bit of Coulston-Hawkins will remain in Canada, however. Justice Gorman ordered him to submit a blood sample for a DNA databank used by Canadian police agencies to help solve crimes.