A judge and several lawyers struggled with math as they worked through the offenses and calculations for the sentence of a man who faced 56 criminal charges for crimes in the last three years.
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Robert L. Patterson, 48, got a two-year-less-a-day sentence but Justice Colette Good told him he could have ended up in prison for several of his crimes.
“You were committing offenses of violence against intimate partners and the level of violence is very serious – it has the potential to take human life.”
Good was told that Patterson attacked two former partners, including chasing one of them around her home with a knife, booting in door after door as she tried to hide.
He threatened the women, her children and pets.
And Patterson ignored police and court orders to stay away from the frightened women.
Last October, Patterson returned to the home of one woman who, in a 911 call, could be heard screaming and being attacked.
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Patterson kicked in the door of her bedroom, then a bathroom, and when she locked herself in a second bathroom, he kicked in that door as well.
The woman escaped outside and Patterson locked himself in the house, threatening her, her dogs and himself, all while under house arrest and an order not to be within 50 meters of the woman.
When police arrived, Patterson had escaped out the back door.
In an old victim impact statement read at the sentencing hearing, a former partner said Patterson’s actions left her frightened for herself and the safety of her children.
“He’s dangerous and I’m not sure what he will do,” wrote the woman.
“He thinks he can do anything he wants” despite conditions put on the man.
In court, Patterson pleaded guilty to assaulting a woman and mischief for throwing a brick and hammer at her truck in August 2021; a breach of release orders that October; assaulting a second woman and threatening to kill her in May 2022 after unlawfully being in her house; and, in connection with his October 8 attack where he kicked in three doors, assault with a weapon, possession of a weapon, unlawful entry, threatening death, and two counts of breaching release orders.
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Assistant Crown attorney Katarina Totamir also read in certain facts so they were on the record, saying Patterson was seen on surveillance video in September 2022 loading building materials into a van from a Six Nations home that was under construction.
Totamir said he was also seen the following September creeping around the home of one of the women he attacked, trying to get in.
Before the judge could sentence Patterson, the lawyers discovered yet another charge he was to plead guilty to: dangerous driving from May 2023 when police saw him slowing in front of the home of one of the women he had been ordered to stay away from.
When Patterson saw the cops, he sped away, blowing through a stop sign and forcing one vehicle to pull over.
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Totamir found another charge she wanted to read into the record. In August 2023, Six Nations Police located a stolen GMC Sierra, with a trailer that contained an excavator loaded on it, and saw Patterson in the same laneway.
“The accused was looking into the door of a stolen black trailer with a stolen green Chevy Nova inside,” said Totamir.
Once spotted, she said Patterson ran to the stolen Sierra and drove at police, hitting an unmarked police car before trying to run.
In the agreed submission for two-years-less-a-day, 43 other charges were withdrawn.
Justice Good noted that Patterson had no previous record and “47 years of good behavior in the bank of life” before the “wheels kind of fell off the bus.”
“I appreciate you were using alcohol and drugs as a coping mechanism but this behavior is so concerning, unexplained, continuous and dangerous that the court is concerned about the safety of these victims.”
While Patterson’s lawyer urged a time-served sentence of about a year, Good said that wasn’t going to happen.
Instead, Patterson was told he had another nine-and-a-half months to serve.
With the almost-two-year sentence, the judge ordered Patterson to be on probation for three years, provide a DNA sample, follow a weapons ban for ten years and be under a driving prohibition for one year.
@EXPSGamble
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