Corner Brook -
A Corner Brook man whose workplace injury resulted in a drug addiction that led him into a life of crime has had his jail sentence reduced by two months after the case was reviewed in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Tyler Gibson, 27, was originally jailed for eight months after he pleaded guilty last September to stealing a pair of sneakers and having stolen sweaters in his possession.
With eight prior convictions for theft and 15 prior convictions for breaching court orders, he was also convicted of two breaches of probation.
During the original sentencing hearing, Gibson's lawyer, Keir O'Flaherty, asked Judge Wayne Gorman to consider the medical reasons behind the drug addiction which had fueled Gibson's spree of small-scale thefts, all of which occurred in the two years previous to his latest conviction.
After graduating from high school, Gibson enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces. In his fourth year of military service, he was involved in an accident during a parachute jump, suffering a back injury and was placed on pain control medication, mainly Oxycontin.
No longer able to meet the physical requirements of the Armed Forces, Gibson was granted an honourable discharge about a year later. By this time, he had developed a dependency on the pain control medication and had begun committing thefts to finance his addiction.
In sentencing Gibson, Gorman considered but rejected the drug addiction as a relevant mitigating factor. While there was a connection, Gorman said the number of previous convictions made the "excuse of addiction" no longer valid.
"This is simply something that has been going on too long for the court to see that any longer as a mitigating factor," said Gorman.
Too recent to be ignored
Upon appeal, Justice William H. Goodridge disagreed with Gorman, ruling the drug dependency and its consequences for Gibson were far too recent to be ignored.
"In Mr. Gibson's case, not enough time has passed for these mitigating factors to be ignored completely," said Goodridge. "The lapse into criminal behaviour is recent and followed a clean record well into his adult life. The workplace injury and the resulting drug dependency are still relevant mitigating factors and should have been considered in determining sentence duration."
During the original sentencing, the Crown suggested a jail term of three to four months followed by a lengthy period of probation with conditions for drug addiction counseling. The defence asked for a lesser jail term due to the mitigating factors.
Gorman sentenced Gibson to three months for possessing stolen goods, three months for breach of probation in relation to the possession offence and two more months for the theft. Gorman gave Gibson two months, to be served concurrently with his eight-month sentence, for the breach of probation in relation to the theft.
During the appeal hearing, both the Crown and defence submitted that the sentences imposed for the two breaches of probation were excessive.
Goodridge ruled the theft and possession offences were nearer the lower end of the scale in terms of seriousness and so were the probation breaches associated with them.
He reduced the sentence for both breaches to one month each, thereby reducing Gibson's overall sentence by two months.
