Courts | In brief
Published Tuesday November 3rd, 2009
Oromocto woman gets probation for theft
An Oromocto First Nation woman who grabbed cash from a woman at an ATM did so because she believed the victim damaged her car and owed her for the repairs.
Amanda Dawn Marie Atwin, 23, was initially charged with an April 23 count of robbery but pleaded guilty to the lesser, included charge of indictable theft.
Crown prosecutor Paul Hawkins said the victim had just withdrawn several hundred dollars in cash from an ATM when Atwin approached her, grabbed the cash and said she owed her for smashing windows in her car.
Atwin then looked at the cash and gave the victim back $100, noting she didn't need it all.
When the victim reported the incident to police, she denied having damaged Atwin's car.
"This is one of the strangest cases of theft or potential robbery that this court has ever seen," Judge Patricia Cumming said Monday.
She tried to impress upon Atwin, a first-time offender, the seriousness of the situation, noting that if she'd admitted to or been found guilty of robbery, she'd likely have faced a federal prison term of about four years.
Cumming instead placed Atwin on probation for eight months.
During that time, she's to perform 25 hours of community-service work and pay back $220 in restitution to the victim.
Atwin must also pay a $100 victim-fine surcharge.
Young pot plants land man in jail
A Woodstock-area man who was caught with immature marijuana plants in his home earlier this year was sentenced to two months in jail in Burton provincial court Monday.
Crown prosecutor Alicia Bennett said RCMP officers executed a search warrant at the Carleton County home of Kerry Douglas Buchanan the evening of May 20.
He had a tray of small, immature pot plants near a window, basking in the sun.
The 58 pot plants, about three or four inches tall, were worth about $5 each at the early stage of growth.
Officers also found firearms and ammunition that were improperly stored in an unlocked closet, the court heard.
In addition to the two-month jail sentence, Judge Patricia Cummings fined Buchanan a total of $445, ordered him to provide a DNA sample to police, prohibited him from possessing firearms for 10 years and ordered the seized guns forfeited to the Crown.
"So in other words, you steal my guns," Buchanan said, who said the offences were minor.
Instead of paying the fines, he opted to do an additional six days in jail in default.
Court briefs compiled by reporter Don MacPherson
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Why the DNA sample?