Pair to serve less than two years for assaults
Assailants to be out in under two years after credit for time served
Two men who viciously assaulted a senior in an unprovoked attack in Vanier in 2018 will each serve less than two years in jail after a judge deducted time for restrictive bail conditions and credit for time already served, including socalled “COVID credit” in a sentence rendered in an Ottawa courtroom Monday.
Ontario Court Justice Peter Doody found Yusuf Hussein and Abdirahman Sahal guilty in February of aggravated assault for the Dec. 8, 2018 attack that left 75-yearold Morty White bleeding in a parking lot with a fractured pelvis, two broken ribs and a broken nose.
White testified at trial along with another man, 57-year-old Julian Wilson, who told the court he was walking down the Montreal Road sidewalk that morning when the two assailants crossed the street and without warning one of them punched him in the face.
He ran away, and moments later White, a retired baker who was on his way home after his traditional weekend breakfast with friends, stepped out of a bank and into the attackers' path.
Doody called the assault against Wilson and the aggravated assault on White “unprovoked acts of gratuitous violence” that “had significant impacts on both Mr. White and Mr. Wilson … although the impacts could have been much more severe, given the nature of the assaults.”
Both men tendered victim impact statements at a court hearing earlier this year.
Wilson told court he suffers from anxiety since the attack, and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, which has worsened since he was assaulted.
White told court that while he does not have any lasting sideeffects, the attack has affected him and those close to him with an “understanding (of ) the fragility of life and what might have been,” Doody said.
White wrote to the judge: “While I have the ability not to dwell on negativity and try to just look forward, this shouldn't have happened to me or anyone else and I am pleased that justice is being served.”
Assistant Crown attorney Matthew Humphreys had asked for four years in a federal prison. Hussein's defence lawyer Shira Brass argued for a suspended sentence and probation, while Sahal's lawyer Sarah Ahsan argued for a six-month term for her client after deducting credit for time served in custody and under restrictive bail conditions.
Defence lawyers for both men asked the judge to “consider the effect of the pandemic” in his sentencing decision.
Ahsan sought additional credit for the effect the pandemic had on Sahal while incarcerated. Sahal, who suffers from asthma, is at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19, she said, and therefore he “suffered emotional stress beyond that suffered by inmates when the pandemic was not an issue.”
In the ruling, Doody granted Sahal an additional 12 days off his sentence for the time he served during the outset of the pandemic in March before he was released on bail in April.
“I recognize that the risk of transmission of the virus is higher where people are at close quarters. It will be with us for a while,” Doody said. “Nevertheless, I have concluded that the sentences I am imposing are as short as possible, considering all of the circumstances of the offences and the offenders.”
Sahal's three-year sentence was reduced by more than 14 months after calculating credit for time served. He was credited 354 days for pre-sentence custody and 12 days as a “COVID credit,” the judge wrote in his decision, for the time he served between the outset of the pandemic crisis on March 13 and his release on bail on April 4. He was credited for another 60 days under restrictive bail conditions.
The judge calculated he has 669 days, or 22 months, left to serve.
Hussein was handed a 30-month sentence, which was reduced to 695 days — about 23 months — after credit for time in pre-sentence custody and under restrictive bail.
Both men are 19, and were 18 at the time of the assault.
Doody said he considered Hussein's struggles with mental health in his sentence, noting the progress he has made with a psychiatrist and an outreach worker. The judge recommended that Hussein serve his sentence at the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre “so that he may have the opportunity to participate in programming to improve his insight into his mental illness, substance use, and offending behaviour.”
Hussein “has not had an easy path dealing with the mental health system,” Doody said.
He noted the apology Hussein made to the court and to the victims; Sahal did not show remorse at trial, the judge said.
“(Hussein) said that he was very sorry for what happened that day — that it was a life lesson,” Doody wrote in his decision. “He told me that his almost two years on house arrest had made him more mature, and that he was working with his psychotherapist on his coping skills.
“He said he was very ashamed of himself, that he knew that Mr. White and Mr. Wilson were innocent victims and that his apology would not be enough, but hoped that it would help in some way with the healing process. He said this will never happen again.”
The sentences for Hussein and Sahal include two years of probation, an order for a DNA sample for the national databank and a firearms ban for life.
“The circumstances of these offences, and the records of the offenders, requires a lifetime prohibition,” Doody wrote. ahelmer@postmedia.com Twitter.com/ helmera