Kelowna man sentenced to 300 days for domestic assaults

Photo: Contributed

A Kelowna man will be spending 57 more days in jail after pleading guilty to four charges of domestic assault.

Thomas McBride, 27, appeared in court Tuesday to be sentenced and explained he was extremely addicted to alcohol at the time of the assaults.

The identity of McBride's victim is protected by a publication ban. Court heard he punched and slapped her in the face, squeezed her head, threw her to the ground and bit her.

During one incident, McBride met with the woman at a park in Kelowna before dragging her into his vehicle, driving to a remote area and assaulting her.

Crown and defense provided a joint submission, or plea deal, to Judge Lisa Wyatt on Tuesday, seeking a global sentence for 300 days in custody, followed by 24 months of probation. Wyatt accepted the submission and as a result of McBride’s time already served, he has 57 more days left on his sentence.

McBride’s victim described the ongoing abuse as having significant physical and psychological impacts on her to this day. She continues to suffer from deep sadness, regret, nightmares, brain trauma, fatigue, loss of appetite and whiplash.

McBride said he was remorseful Tuesday, “I feel bad and I’m sorry for what I did.”

McBride said he has been an alcoholic since he was 20 years old, using it to cope with his own trauma. “I didn’t have a proper chance to grieve so I was trying to use alcohol as an excuse. I was seriously addicted to alcohol…I wish I had stopped a long long time ago.”

Judges in Canada are bound to respect joint sentencing submissions of Crown and defense, unless they believe the proposed sentence brings the “administration of justice into disrepute” and would lead a typical person to believe there is a “breakdown in the proper function of the justice system.”