ATHABASCA – A man who fled from Athabasca RCMP in a stolen pickup truck in the fall of 2022, received a small break on his sentence with the presiding Judge warning him that he needs to stay clean and sober.
Appearing in Athabasca Provincial Court via CCTV from the Edmonton Remand Centre (ERC), Ethan Alexander Redding, 26, pleaded guilty to possession of stolen property over $5,000 and flight from police, while an identical charge of possession of stolen property over $5,000 and one count of failing to attend court was withdrawn by Crown prosecutor Nicole Parker.
Judge Joanne Heudes sided with defence lawyer Patrick Edgerton who had asked for a 102-day jail sentence, time deemed served by the 68 days, credited at one to one-and-a-half, Redding has served since his Dec. 22, 2022, arrest — Parker initially talked about a 210-day sentence, but after a meeting with Edgerton, scaled her ask back to 120 days. Judge Heudes also imposed a one-year driving ban on Redding, who intends to live in the greater-Edmonton area upon his release from the ERC.
Edgerton told court that Redding had a tough upbringing as his family was fractured at a young age and he grew up “the hungry kind of poor” and dropped out of high school in Grade 10. Now hoping to reconnect with his daughter who’s almost two years old, Edgerton said Redding “understands to do this, sobriety will be the issue.”
“It’s good that you acknowledge that you have issues with sobriety and that’s really what brings you here and that you’re trying to address this with housing — I hope you realize that your housing is really conditional on you being sober … and that’s the underpinning of all of your success here,” said Judge Heudes.
“And it’s going to be the way in to your two-year-old child. If you’re trying to make headways and rekindle that bond, you’re going to have to be a sober and responsible person.
“Because it’s an early guilty plea, you were there over Christmas and were caught up in all of this, I do have some sympathy for you. You do seem to have a good plan in place … I think it’s a healthy plan and I think it’s a reasonable plan as well.”
The crime
Parker told court that on Sept. 10, 2022, Athabasca RCMP were dispatched to a 911 call after a witness saw a stolen black GMC Sierra pickup truck being driven by Redding.
RCMP showed up at the location and found the truck, which fled “in the opposite direction.” Police eventually found the truck abandoned with Edgerton noting police had lifted Redding’s fingerprint from one of the truck’s mirrors.
During sentencing, Edgerton noted several holes in the Crown’s case and said, “it would have been a trial I wouldn’t have minded running.”
