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BARRHEAD – The quandary of how to sentence a defendant to house arrest when they live out of their truck and don’t have a residence arose during a case heard in the Barrhead Court of Justice May 23.
Matthew Kyle Sandstrom, 33, pleaded guilty to a single charge of assault with a weapon.
Justice Carrie-Ann Downey sentenced Sandstrom to a month of 24-hour house arrest at his parents’ residence in Edmonton, followed by 12 months of probation.
During the month-long conditional sentence order, Sandstrom must abide by a number of conditions, such as keeping the peace and being of good behaviour, appearing in court when required to do so, reporting to a probation officer, possessing no weapons and having no contact with the victim or attending any known residence, workplace or place of worship of the victim.
The conditions of the probation order are similar though certain conditions were dropped, such as requiring Sandstrom to abstain from alcohol or drugs.
Crown prosecutor Anthony Estephan said that on May 3, 2023, Barrhead RCMP received a report of an assault by Sandstrom at an unspecified location.
When the RCMP arrived, they found the complainant wandering around on the road trying to find help. Both men were intoxicated by alcohol, though Sandstrom admitted to also using meth prior to the incident.
Sandstrom told the RCMP that he and the complainant were childhood friends, but they had gotten into a fight after Sandstrom had told the complainant he wouldn’t drive him back to Edmonton. This escalated to Sandstrom hitting the victim in the head with a wrench.
The wrench was located in the truck, and the victim was taken to hospital with serious but non life-threatening injuries.
Estephan said Sandstrom had a criminal record with offences stretching between September 2005 and August 2021, including some dated violent offences from over a decade ago.
Estephan indicated the very early guilty plea was mitigating, noting that Sandstrom was “very adamant about getting this matter dealt with today.”
Also mitigating was the fact that the victim’s injuries, while requiring treatment, were also not particularly serious. As well, Estephan said there were some trialable issues related to self-defence and defence of property.
Because of Sandstrom’s acceptance of responsibility, the Crown was of the opinion that there was no danger posed to the community if Sandstrom served a custodial sentence outside of jail.
When given an opportunity to speak, Sandstrom apologized for wasting the court’s time and taxpayer money.
Sandstrom said he thought he was doing the complainant a favour by taking him for a trip out of Edmonton, but he spent the entire time complaining.
The inciting incident was Sandstrom seeing some text messages accusing the complainant of something he didn’t want to repeat in court, at which point Sandstrom told the complainant he wouldn’t take him back to Edmonton. The argument then escalated to violence.
“He went to a lot of lengths to try and get me to … drive him home. He just wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Sandstrom said.
Noting that he lives out of his truck, Sandstrom admitted that what he did was wrong, “but I was mainly trying to protect my property, my house.”
Justice Downey agreed with the joint submission for the house arrest and a year of probation, taking into account the mitigating and aggravating factors as well as Sandstrom’s general history of completing past court orders.
“You used a wrench, you hit a friend. That’s bad, obviously, but it could have been worse,” said Justice Downey.
A snag was hit when it was acknowledged that Sandstrom didn’t have a residence where he could serve his house arrest, as probation would need to check on him.
The Crown admitted to not being aware that Sandstrom lived out of his truck when making the sentencing recommendation.
After Sandstrom checked with his parents, it was agreed he could spend the month of house arrest at their place.
